NASSAU, BAHAMAS — It took Azzi Fudd eight attempts over two games to see her signature 3-point shot fall through the net, but when she finally sank one in the UConn women’s basketball team’s opening game at the Baha Mar Women’s Championship against Oregon State on Monday, it felt like a moment of joyful relief for the entire arena.
The 3-pointer was Fudd’s first since she suffered a season-ending ACL and medial meniscus tear two games into the 2023-24 season, the culmination of a nearly year-long recovery process. There was a palpable tension from the small crowd, which included more than a dozen of Fudd’s family members, anxiously holding its breath every time she pulled up from beyond the arc.
When the shot dropped with seven and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter, UConn’s bench and the cheering section behind it immediately exploded. The three fittingly came off of an assist from star point guard — and Fudd’s longtime friend — Paige Bueckers, who threw her head back and three fingers in the air with both hands, grinning ear-to-ear. Fudd herself offered only a small smile and a quick point to Bueckers before pivoting to recover on defense.
“I was like, finally,” Fudd said with a smile. “It felt amazing, but I was like, come on. It couldn’t have been the first one or the second one or the third one or the fourth one, but no, it was like the 25th one. But it felt amazing just it see it go in. It was a great feeling.”
Fudd’s reintroduction to the Huskies’ lineup has come with an adjustment period: She made a single field goal in each of her first two games, though both were highlight-reel moments — a steal-and-score against Fairleigh Dickinson on Nov. 20 and the long-awaited three against the Beavers. Coach Geno Auriemma knows it’s going to be a process for Fudd to get comfortable in game situations again after so much time away from the court, but he is pleased to see her already finding her spots and getting the looks he wants for her.
“She’s played a lot at practice doing simulated games with our practice players, and she’s played great,” Auriemma said. “But the emotion, I think, and the adrenaline flow is a little bit different when you’re playing in a real game, so that’s going to take a little bit of time, but little by little, she’ll find her way. I think we can be patient as long as we know she’s on the right track, and I think she’s getting those shots, and that’s a good thing.”
While Fudd’s offense hasn’t come along quite as quickly as she had hoped, the star guard still had a huge impact for the Huskies in their 71-52 win over Oregon State. She logged a career-high five assists plus four rebounds and recorded her first block since March 2023 in 20 minutes on the floor, a substantial increase in her second game back from the 12 minutes she played against Fairleigh Dickinson. But Fudd said she was surprised Wednesday when she woke up feeling better physically than she expected.
“My body feels really great,” Fudd said. “I didn’t feel bad by any means after the first game, but I felt even better waking up this morning. I thought, since I played more minutes, I might be a little more sore. I don’t know if it’s the Bahamas weather, who knows, but I felt great this morning, I felt great today (at practice). So I’m really excited about how things are going.”
Fudd’s defense has taken a major leap in just two games back on the court, which she partly attributes to her focus on strength training during the recovery process. After emphasizing the muscle groups that support her knees for so many months, Fudd also found herself more at ease in her defensive positioning when she returned.
“I think it honestly was all those single leg squats, all that focus in the lower leg. Like, my legs are so strong,” Fudd said. “Even getting back into it with the defensive slides, all the glute work, I feel like that definitely helped prepare me … Being comfortable, using my body and my strength, I’m still kind of getting (used to) that in games at least. I feel like I can do it in practice, so these last two games, I’m like, I’m doing it in practice, so why isn’t it translating? So I’m still getting over that last little hill.”
But the other, perhaps more significant, change is in her mindset. Fudd’s college career has been plagued by injuries — a lingering foot issue kept her out of 11 games as a freshman, and she missed 22 in her sophomore year with an undisclosed right knee injury before the ACL tear ended her junior season when it had barely begun. The Huskies star, who signed with UConn as the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2021, was forced to reckon with cruel twists of fate again and again, and she has come out on the other side with a new outlook on her goals for the 2024-25 season.
“I wanted that to be a focus of this year, controlling the controllables, the things that I can control, which is defense and my energy, my attitude towards it,” Fudd said. “So making sure I’m always on on on top of my defense, applying pressure, trying to do the little things. I’ve been really happy with how the last two games have gone from that perspective, but I’m just trying to keep that going.”
