UConn WBB Weekly: This is Azzi Fudd’s team now

Welcome to UConn WBB Weekly. A roundup of everything that happened in the world of UConn women’s basketball over the past week.

Weekly is our newsletter! Subscribe to your inbox before it’s delivered to the site every Thursday at 7am.

headline

From UConn WBB Weekly Premium:

From the UConn blog:

Last week’s weekly:

This is now Aji Fad’s team

There is another world where Azzi Fudd has spent all four years of his career at UConn with Paige Bueckers. Now, it’s plausible that the two would never play a full season together.

On Wednesday, the Huskies beat the Bookers Will miss 2022-23 season after torn ACL in pick-up game MondayThe junior-to-be is eligible for the 2023 WNBA Draft, and it’s possible Bookers won’t be playing another game in a UConn uniform.

In the first scenario, Bookers wouldn’t have been injured and could have used a bonus COVID year to play a fifth season during Fudd’s senior year. , Buckers and Fudd could have finally shared the spotlight as the deadly one-two punch, but neither would have been a lone superstar.

Husky instead finds a big void in the heart of the team.There are some questions about what would happen without Bookers, but there’s no shortage of talent, including four top 10 recruits, an Olympian, and a conference player of the year. The Mantra of “Eat Together” It was used for most of last season because no one can perfectly replicate what the Bueckers do.

Nika Mühl must take full responsibility for the point guard position. Caroline Ducharm, Aji Fudd and Lou Lopez-Senechal must score in the backcourt. Aaliyah Edwards and Dorka Juhász must own paint every night. Injuries never let the Husky sink, but the margin of error is now much smaller.

No one can be Bookers, but there is one perfect player to step up as the Huskies’ next go-to player. Aji Fad, the program’s next star.

Ducharme’s 25-point game against Tennessee and 29-point game against Villanova saw him single-handedly win back UConn in the final minutes. His 19-point effort in the Elite Eight’s win over North Carolina State — to name a few.

Few players can start the game as fast as Fudd with her lethal 3-point shot. The way she stepped up against Tennessee and her late-game composure during the NCAA Tournament when she became a free-throw shooter for the Huskies showed that she can handle big moments, too.

Not just points. Geno Auriemma pointed out that Fudd is more than just a shooter at every opportunity. Even if it fell short of her numbers, largely due to a lingering leg injury, Fudd clearly had the ball in her hands and will play a bigger role as a distributor by missing Buckers. She is also an aggressive defender and takes pride in playing on the other side of the ball. Once she’s fully healthy, it’s possible that that side of her game will become more apparent.

Bueckers’ injury is a development UConn could never have planned. It leaves a team without a superstar and thins in the backcourt. A lot has to go wrong for the Huskies to remain one of the best teams in the country.

Basketball is driven by individual players, as is balance. That means someone has to take the torch from Bueckers as the centerpiece of the team.

So this is Fudd’s team now. It’s time for her to become a star.

best of social media

Response to Paige Bookers injury:

UConn still owns WNBA.