It seems like years ago, as after all, this UConn women’s basketball season has often felt like several distinct seasons packed into one. But back in the fall, you may remember, the combination of Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd was all the talk, the most anticipated new show in women’s basketball.
Injuries got in the way before the overture was played and the fun could begin. Fudd was slowed and finally shut down with a foot injury from Nov. 22 to Jan. 25. Bueckers, with he knee injury and surgery, was out from Dec. 5 to Feb. 25. The last month has been a process of getting both up to game speed, and figuring out how to jell.
Fudd and Bueckers didn’t start a game together until the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Now the Bueckers and Fudd Show is on for real, the next performance against NC State on Monday in the Bridgeport Regional final at 7 p.m.
“Azzi, it’s really easy to play with her,” Bueckers said. “She’s a really good player, so getting back in the flow of that, it’s easy. But I would say it’s a whole-team thing.”
Said Fudd: “It’s been kind of a challenge for all of us with all the different starting lineups and injuries. But we’ve gotten past that point, and it’s fun to play with everyone, and it’s easy to play with someone like Paige who is a great facilitator and gets you easy looks.”
This is the dynamic UConn was planning. It’s far more than the history and chemistry between them, though that’s the fun part to talk about. It’s the sophom*ore Bueckers, the national player of the year as a freshman, breaking down a defense with her one-of-a-kind moves, setting up freshman Fudd, the top recruit in the 2021 class, to unleash her one-of-a-kind shot. Defenses, like Indiana’s on Saturday, are then supposed to choose their poison pill.
“Those two have to work incredibly hard to get open,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “I don’t think the other team is sitting there saying, ‘I wonder who is going to shoot the ball for them.’ They know exactly where we are going. That’s why it’s so important for Christyn Williams to be so aggressive and so physical in attacking the basket because there is so much attention being driven toward Azzi and Paige.”
In the Sweet 16 victory over Indiana, Bueckers, in her eighth game back from the surgery, looked more confident and began to search for her shot and assert her talent, playing 33 minutes and taking 17 shots, making seven for 15 points. Fudd came out firing, making three 3-pointers early before cooling off, but still scored 11. Fudd was a plus-12 in her 35 minutes, Bueckers a plus-16 and Williams, with 15 points, a plus-18. It clicked, especially during the 16-0 run to open the second half, but it left one to wonder if there is another level still to be reached.
This next game calls for it. The last doorway to the Final Four is the toughest to pass, Auriemma, like many coaches, believes. Maybe it’s because we all tend to count Final Four appearances as a benchmark on a resume. That’s not necessarily true for UConn, which has made the last 13 Final Fours and has found the national semifinal the stubborn stumbling block, but still it feels like this Elite Eight is the make-or-break game for this season. UConn is the No. 2 seed, but has a home-state advantage against No. 1 NC State, a team that starts a junior, a senior and three grad students.
“To get out of this weekend, I think you do need one player, preferable two, that are going to play great and get you to next weekend,” Auriemma said. “Your program can only get you so far, and this is he end of the road unless somebody steps up and plays spectacularly well. Who that is, I don’t know because we haven’t had our team together except for the last three of four weeks. Could be anybody at this point.”
Anybody? A breakthrough from the dynamic duo is just the thing UConn needs right now. Their overlapping injuries, in some ways, helped prepare them to collaborate for this moment.
“When I was out this year,” Fudd said, “I felt bad because our team was going through so much, and really like figuring out who they are and our team’s identity, and I felt like I couldn’t help at all. So I tried watching a lot of film and basketball, and that was something Paige helped me with, because I didn’t really watch much basketball outside of my own games.”
Said Bueckers: “It’s really easy to sort of isolate yourself and get down in times where basketball is taken away from you, when you love it so much. Being able to surround yourself with your teammates, and especially Azzi being someone who went through the same thing I did with her knee surgery [in high school]. Just having someone like that to talk to and lean on, keeping you positive and keeping you motivated is really important.”
So on Monday night, another curtain goes up and the lights will be brighter. What better time and place for two young, charismatic stars who had dreamed of playing together to cut loose, take the moment and make it their own?
“She did bug me a lot [about coming to UConn],” Fudd said. “Getting to finally do this and now being in the Elite Eight together is a lot of fun.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com.
