UConn's Azzi Fudd Opens Up About Self Doubt
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Azzi Fudd has worn a UConn Huskies jersey for four seasons. Yet, she has played in just 77 games. For a player once labeled as the next generational shooter in women’s basketball, that number feels shockingly low.
However, it starts to make sense when one traces the stops and starts, the foot injuries, the knee tears, the braces, and the rehabs that have defined so much of her career. That is, until now. For the first time since arriving in Storrs, the 5-foot-11 guard is healthy and heading into her senior season.
The journey to get here has been long and bruising. Turns out, amid the chaos, there was a time that Fudd doubted her future in the game.
Azzi Fudd’s Battle Between Pain, Doubt and the Game She Loves
In March 2025, days before the NCAA Tournament tipped off, Fudd decided to take a drive to meet her grandparents, who lived in rural Connecticut. Her parents, Tim and Katie, were waiting there. It wasn’t a casual visit either; she had something to tell them.
Fudd had already spoken to Geno Auriemma, who asked her point-blank if she wanted to be in the WNBA or have another year of collegiate basketball. After a string of hard questions and honest answers, Fudd finally said it out loud. She wasn’t ready.
“I haven’t played enough basketball to feel confident about going there and playing at the highest level,” Fudd told him. And she was right. Across her first three seasons, Fudd suited up for just 42 games.
A foot injury as a freshman kept her out for nearly two months. As a sophomore, she was brilliant against top-ranked Texas for 32 points before a freak fall from a teammate sidelined her with a knee injury, one that never quite healed right. Then came her junior year, when an ACL tear ended her season after two games.
Fudd finally returned as a redshirt junior in 2024-25, appearing in 34 games, averaging 13.6 points, and rediscovering the smooth rhythm that once made her the nation’s No. 1 recruit. However, even with the numbers back up, something inside her wasn’t clicking.
“There was a phase where I just didn’t enjoy playing,” Fudd told ESPN. “Which was weird, because I never really felt that way.”
Her parents saw it too. Tim had started to notice how she’d sometimes drift to the corner, detached from the game.
A December knee scare against Louisville had reignited all the old fears. “It was like, ‘What am I even doing out here?’” Fudd admitted. “'Why even sub in?'” Tim knew that version of his daughter. He’d seen it years earlier, back in high school, when Fudd, fresh off another ACL tear, passed up a game-winning shot she’d made countless times before.
After they left the gym that night, Tim gently took Azzi’s hand and asked if she was hungry. With most restaurants still closed, they stopped at a Walmart, grabbed some food to heat up, and ate in the car. The tension from the game hung in the air until Tim finally asked if she was upset with him for being so hard on her.
Azzi shook her head, signaling that she wasn’t. Years later, sitting in her grandparents’ cottage in Connecticut, Azzi no longer needed that push. This time, she came to her parents with clarity. “You’re grateful that you go through that,” she said. “Because then you realize just how resilient or how strong you are and what you’re capable of after the fact.”
As she spoke, her parents watched the change unfold in real time, the tears slowing, her posture straightening. “That’s the old me,” Tim remembered her saying with conviction. “This is the new me.”Or as her mom, Katie, put it, “This is NCAA tournament me.”And it showed.
The Return of Azzi Fudd’s “NCAA Tournament Me”
That March, Fudd transformed. Through six tournament games, she averaged 17.5 points and 3.0 steals while shooting 44% from three. She struggled in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, but when it mattered, she came through.
Fudd scored 19 points in the national semifinals, then 24 in the championship game, a blowout win over South Carolina that gave UConn its 12th national title. She was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. It was the moment her parents and her coach knew she was finally back.
AZZI FUDD TODAY 🏆
— Women’s Hoops Network (@WomensHoops_USA) April 6, 2025
• 24 POINTS
• 5 REBOUNDS
• 3 STEALS
• 9/17 FG
NATIONAL CHAMPION!
pic.twitter.com/mRipOlPtWv
“The key for this season,” Auriemma said, “is having Final Four Azzi be consistently there for five months.” Now, as she heads into her final season, Fudd is healthy and better on the court. The same player who once questioned why she was even subbing in is now chasing another banner, pursuing her MBA, and embracing her voice as a leader.
As her father said after the championship, “‘All of you have not seen it, none of you have seen it. That is Azzi Fudd.’" This season, the real Fudd is already showing. In the season opener against Louisville, Fudd scored 20 points, 2 rebounds, and 3 assists.
-fd44250df32912986cc6690f0b8bfa32.png "Shivani Menon")
Shivani Menon is a sports journalist with a background in Mass Communication and a passion for storytelling. She has written for EssentiallySports, College Sports Network, and PFSN, covering Olympic sports like track and field, gymnastics, and alpine skiing, as well as college football, basketball, March Madness, and the NBL Draft. When she's not reporting, she's either on the road chasing sunsets or getting lost in the rhythms of electronic soundscapes.