Azzi Fudd Fires Back After Paige Bueckers UConn 'Layher' Jab
UConn Huskies fans were delighted to see star guard Paige Bueckers back at her alma mater last weekend while the team prepares to defend its 2025 NCAA national championship.
Of course, Bueckers was a key component to UConn capturing its first national title since 2016, and the 12th of legendary head coach Geno Auriemma's tenure with the team. Now, Bueckers has moved on and has become one of the WNBA's most lethal guards, which resulted in her winning the 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year Award with the Dallas Wings.
But Bueckers will always have ties (and an excuse to return) to UConn; especially right now, given that her girlfriend Azzi Fudd is still on the roster. While these two surely competed against each other all the time when they were both on the Huskies' roster together, Bueckers seemed to relish the opportunity to match up against Fudd when she returned to Storrs last weekend and played on UConn's practice squad against their 2025-26 roster.
And Bueckers commemorated this UConn return with an October 26 Instagram post, which included several photos of her time spent back at the school with the caption, "Real good trip back home💙💍🤞🏼".
In one of the photos, Bueckers is getting a layup at practice while Fudd is guarding her. Bueckers made a tag on that photo, which said, "layher". This seems to be a reference to her securing a layup bucket over Fudd, thus beating her. Bueckers also reposted this photo on her Instagram story, adding a poll that asked fans, "Drop the highlights?👀".
OH MY GOD pic.twitter.com/tB6x2778Qz
— j (@thearkvi) October 26, 2025
Azzi Fudd Claps Back About Paige Bueckers 'Layher' Troll
Fudd seems to have taken exception to this lighthearted troll from Bueckers, which she addressed during an October 31 episode of her Fudd Around and Find Out podcast.
"You know what? That's my 'What the Fudd' of the week. I'm changing my 'What the Fudd,'" Fudd said with a laugh when her co-host, Ashanti, mentioned Bueckers' putting "layher" as a tag on the aforementioned Instagram photo.
"She went out of her way to tag me as 'layher'. I have something for her," Fudd continued. "Paige, if you're listening to this, come back to practice. Please."
She later added, "We're not gonna expose her though. We're gonna be classy about it. We're gonna be classy. That's how we are at UConn, classy."
Azzi’s last straw with Paige rage baiting her about the UConn practice was really P tagging her as “layher” 😭😭😭https://t.co/fInglCctJI pic.twitter.com/qEPqk5Wm6f
— j (@thearkvi) October 31, 2025
Perhaps these words from Fudd will entice Bueckers to return to UConn sometime soon over the next couple of months.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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