PHOENIX ― Azzi Fudd’s prolonged silence after losing her final game at UConn, 62-48, held more weight than any words she could ever utter in a Huskies uniform. Fudd and a now-defeated UConn are going back to Storrs, Connecticut, without a trophy.
On Friday, with every bounce and roll off the rim, the basketball, which carried the Huskies’ hopes and dreams of a perfect season, ripped away a 13th championship. For Fudd, it was a gut-wrenching end to an underwhelming NCAA Tournament run and a resilient college career.
“A lot of emotions,” Fudd said about hearing the final buzzer and realizing she will never play in a UConn jersey again.
Before she could say another word, she paused to gather herself, but the emotions pushed past her restraint and usually calm exterior. Her face quickly reddened, and the tears welled up in her eyes before falling, seemingly holding every UConn memory from the last five seasons. Fudd’s voice was notably shaky when she spoke next, despite a comforting hand from head coach Geno Auriemma.
“I mean, obviously, this isn’t how I wanted my career at UConn to end. These five years, I have so much to be grateful for. I couldn’t have asked for better teammates, better coaches, a better experience. … Not how we wanted it to end. But it doesn’t define us, what this team is, what this season was,” Fudd said.
“So, I think guilty. I feel like I let the team down today. But a lot of gratitude, a lot of love. Just a love that I’ll never be able to verbalize and thank the coaching staff, the teammates, support staff, everyone from this program, that’s supported me, touched me. I’ll never be able to really verbalize how much they meant to me.”
Fudd’s visible emotion was just the tip of a mountain of frustration for UConn. The Huskies were something that the public hadn’t seen since Feb. 6, 2025: defeated.
The state of UConn’s bench reflected how much the Huskies had lost control of Friday’s game. Auriemma was swearing often, complaining about missed assignments, poor decision-making and subpar defense. Deep in the third quarter, after freshman Blanca Quiñonez picked up her fourth foul, and South Carolina’s Agot Makeer made a crucial 3-pointer to keep the Gamecocks out in front, Auriemma called a timeout.
In the huddle, guard KK Arnold said, “We’re good,” as she tried to quell what felt like a boiling point for UConn. Auriemma soon made his way into the huddle. He went over to Quiñonez and spoke to her about her defense on the possession. However, as he voiced his displeasure, his hand was raised over Quiñonez’s head. It was demonstrably up in the air so long that a nearby player had to touch Auriemma’s shoulder to tell him to put it down.
The UConn coach struggled to grapple with what was happening in real time, and with every blunder made by his team, the Huskies’ undefeated season slipped away. However, Auriemma maintains he never bought into the undefeated narrative.
“It’s really hard. It’s always been hard. It’s why I don’t like the narrative (in) November, December, January, February. I don’t care when it is, because there’s too many good teams left to play. There’s too many big moments left to play in,” Auriemma said.
“For us to be viewed as ‘they’re going to go undefeated. Nobody can beat them’ ― This game’s about playing the game you’re supposed to play. They played better than us offensively. We held them to 62 points. You hold a team to 62 points, you think you’re going to win that game. We just didn’t make the plays that we needed to make on the offensive end. All the credit to them for how they played and how hard they played and the shots they made when they had to make ’em.”
If Auriemma never privately thought UConn couldn’t be beaten, a tense exchange with the coach who beat him, Dawn Staley, also didn’t help the Huskies’ case Friday. Auriemma and Staley got into a heated back-and-forth while shaking hands near the end of regulation. The interaction happened with just a few tenths of a second remaining. Once the final buzzer sounded, Auriemma did not go back up to Staley to finish the conversation. He promptly walked off the court and down the tunnel, silent.
The UConn coach had already complained during an interview with ESPN about Staley’s interactions with officials and what he felt was a lack of calls for his players. He said the South Carolina coach “rants and raves on the sideline” and calls the referees “some names you don’t want to hear.” Postgame, Auriemma doubled down on his thoughts around Staley.
“I don’t have any regrets about what I said to Holly Rowe. Why would I? Why would I? I’ve been coaching a long time. I’ve never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it, and the official said, I didn’t see it,” Auriemma said.
The Huskies coach later claimed that if he had said what Staley did to the officials, he would have been “tossed.” Still, he conceded that he wasn’t advocating that the Gamecocks’ coach should be ejected from any game. His answers provided little clarity on what was truly bothering him and his team, but before leaving the podium Friday night, he left a clue.
“The motivation is to keep coming back here and trying to win it again. Once you get here, you have to understand that there’s a high probability that you’re going to lose. You can’t be afraid of that. You can’t put yourself in a position where, ‘Well, this is what a lot of people do.’ I maybe don’t want to be in this position; that way I don’t have to feel what my players are feeling right now,” Auriemma said.
“If you walk away when you’re losing, you’re never going to get another opportunity to win again. So I think that is my motivation right now.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UConn women’s basketball’s undefeated season ends in heartbreak
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