The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Fudd’s return a big boost to Huskies postseason hopes
UNCASVILLE — She entered the game to an ovation with 4:15 remaining in the first quarter, giving the 2022-23 UConn women’s basketball team, at minimum, a puncher’s chance at another Final Four appearance and perhaps something beyond that.
Azzi Fudd had missed most of the past three months with knee injuries. Her return Saturday as the Huskies faced Georgetown to open the Big East Tournament was the reunion of a struggling team and a player capable of changing a game as quickly as anyone in America.
So most fans in attendance at Mohegan Sun Arena, including Fudd’s parents, stood and cheered, appreciating not only the long and tricky road now navigated but an immediate future suddenly paved with optimism.
“March Madness, tournament time,” Katie Fudd, Azzi’s mother, said. “It’s just nice seeing her out on the floor doing what she loves again. We’re hoping every game gets better.”
The Fudds — both of them are coaches and former players — sat in the second row across from the UConn bench, a big bag of popcorn slung over the empty seat in front of them. They led chants. They slapped hands with the UConn mascot. They saw their daughter, more comfortable as she went through 16-plus minutes, score 10 points in UConn’s 69-39 quarterfinal victory.
“Nerve-wracking,” Tim Fudd, Azzi’s father, said. “Nerve-wracking but exciting. The game, the sport, teaches us to handle adversity. As coaches, you lean on that and understand there’s light at the end of the tunnel and it’s going to work itself out. From a parent’s perspective, you care for your kids and you just want them to have a great experience and be healthy along the way.”
Fudd hasn’t been, of
course.
She tore the ACL and MCL in her right knee in April 2019, before her junior year of high school, a devastating set of injuries. She missed chunks of her freshman UConn season with a foot injury and returned this season as a sophomore to play brilliantly back in November.
Remember that? Fudd scored 26 points against Northeastern and then 32 against Texas, 32 more against NC State, setting her career high and then matching it six days later. She was flying, taking on the look of a national player of the year candidate, helping the Huskies become a team showing off what it had instead of one harping on what it had lost: Paige Bueckers for the season.
Soon, though, came Fudd’s right knee injury Dec. 4 at Notre Dame, UConn’s first loss. That led to an eight-game absence. She returned Jan. 11 at St. John’s, scoring 14 points in 20 minutes, but re-injured the same knee four days against Georgetown. And she had been out ever since, missing 22 of 24 games altogether.
Fudd was one of the most celebrated prospects in high school history, and she is one of the most visible athletes in college sports, becoming friends and business partners with Steph Curry as one of the faces of his name, image and likeness era.
Yet she has had to continually step behind the scenes to address another injury.
“Deep down, there’s a reason for everything,” Katie Fudd said. “Everybody has their own path. Some people never get hurt. Some people deal with these injuries. That helps to motivate others. That changes who they are. That confirms who they are, as people. It makes them tougher. We don’t necessarily know the reason now, but there is a reason behind it, as corny as that sounds. Azzi is a very strong person. She is very strong inside. And she’s just going to continue to work and push until she’s where she needs to be.”
Fudd’s parents talk to her often about keeping an eye on the light, which comes into sharper focus with every little step in a rehabilitation. Auriemma, throughout Fudd’s absence, has described a we’ll-see approach when asked about her return. She’ll be ready when she’s ready, he would say.
Fudd was ready Saturday, making her latest comeback and playing with a brace her knee.
“I think what happens is it makes you a little bit cautious, that even when somebody tells you you’re OK, you’re cleared to play, in your mind you’re like, ‘Am I?’ ” Auriemma said. “So when people kept asking, when is she going to play — well, if you ask the doctor, she can play right now. But if you ask her, ‘I’m not quite there yet.’ So I think that comes from it happening over and over and over again. And then you have to get to that level, mentally, where you say, ‘I’ve done all my rehab, I’ve done everything I can. Now I’m going to put it to good use.’ ”
Auriemma described a couple other players — Bueckers and Nika Muhl — as “reckless spirits” who probably would have thrown all caution to the wind the first time a doctor smiled or winked. Fudd was going to be much more deliberate in her process.
“This was always my goal, to come back for tournament time,” she said.
Fudd made 3 of 9 shots, with a couple 3-pointers rimming in and out before she got two in a row to go down, a familiar bangbang sequence, this one giving UConn a 56-23 lead. Then she sat beside Auriemma, joined on stage by teammate Aaliyah Edwards, following a comfortable tournament victory after each of the past 10 had been such a grind, eight of them decided by single digits.
“It’s been tough having to be on the sidelines so much watching everyone struggle through all the ups and downs we’ve been through,” Fudd said. “But that was my motivation to keep working hard. My goal was to get back on the floor. So every day working hard in rehab, doing what I need to, all my extra stuff, hoping that I could get back here at the end of the season with them.”
Fudd’s return isn’t a cure-all. UConn’s ability to resemble a team capable of a deep NCAA Tournament run is more complicated, more encompassing. The Huskies’ have played poorly for much of the past month or so and correction needed to take place within.
The return of the best player helps make those corrections easier, though. UConn had all 10 players available for the first time since Nov. 14 at the start of Saturday’s game. Caroline Ducharme, who has also missed much of the season, exited the game after being struck in the head but she is expected to play Sunday.
So UConn can feel whole again — as whole as it can be, anyway — headed deeper into the postseason. And in Fudd, they have a prolific scorer, someone capable of being the best player on the court any time she steps on it.
“I always said if we didn’t get Azzi back and Caroline, if we didn’t get the two of them, that it was going to be a short postseason probably for us,” Auriemma said. “What that means, I don’t know. But I think having Azzi and hopefully having Caroline, I think, gives us our best chance to go far in not just this tournament but the next one.”
Bueckers last season returned from an injury that cost her about three months, played sparingly in the regular season’s final two games, found her footing in the Big East Tournament and famously led the charge to UConn’s 14th consecutive Final Four.
Fudd’s impact is immediate, even if it will be fine-tuned over time.
“I didn’t expect Azzi to come in and have a huge impact,” Auriemma said. “I expected exactly what we just got. How will that change going forward? It’s only going to get better because all her talents and all her skills, they fit perfectly with what we do. And we haven’t changed what we do even though she wasn’t in the game for the last however many months. So she just steps into something that’s very familiar, very comfortable and doesn’t have to relearn anything at all.”