UConn women’s signee Azzi Fudd opens up to ESPN about recovery from ACL, MCL tears and more

When most people think of Azzi Fudd, they think of the dominant No. 1 recruit that some already consider to be a generational basketball talent.

But after tearing her ACL and MCL in April 2019, Fudd wasn’t quite sure whether she’d return to be that Azzi Fudd ever again.

Fudd, who signed with UConn last November, detailed her strenuous recovery process to ESPN’s Katie Barnes in a recent ESPN Cover Story, and how she’s fought to ensure that she can still be the player she and so many others envisioned her to be.

Early in her high school career, Fudd had ascended to the top of the basketball world. The 5-11 guard was the first sophomore to be named the Gatorade National Basketball Player of the Year and earned recognition as the best 3-point shooter at Steph Curry’s SC30 Select Camp. Everything came crashing down when Fudd tore her ACL and MCL playing in USA Basketball’s 3-vs-3 U18 nationals the spring of her sophomore year.

Fudd waited six weeks post-injury for her MCL to heal before undergoing reconstructive ACL surgery. The recovery process was grueling, but Fudd was motivated to push through it not just for herself, but for her mother: Katie Fudd, then Katie Smrcka-Duffy, starred at Georgetown and was drafted into the WNBA before her professional career was derailed by an ACL injury.

“I want to achieve her dreams that she didn’t get to achieve,” Fudd told Barnes, “and do the things that she couldn’t do.”

Helping Fudd make her way back was current UConn freshman Paige Bueckers, Fudd’s close friend. With the pandemic shutting down most organized basketball, the two trained wherever and however they could around Fudd’s home in northern Virginia — “It was almost two- or three-a-days that we did,” Bueckers told Barnes. “[Fudd] never gets tired of working out.” And there were some epic one-on-one battles between the future UConn teammates (”I always won three. If she told you any different, then she’s lying,” Bueckers added).

With sports shut down in D.C. amid the pandemic, Fudd’s high school team is playing an official schedule this season. Fudd told The Courant recently that pandemic disruptions have made it more difficult for her to get back into a groove, and that she’s still working to build up her confidence to where it was pre-injury.

“I just want to be completely comfortable and get back 100 percent of my confidence and just feeling good again,” Fudd said. “It’ll go up and down with how it feels in games. It’s not something I ever think about like, ‘Am I going to injure it again?’ Before, if I was missing shots or a game wasn’t going my way, I could brush it off easily. Now I tend to get in my head a little bit more, so I want to get rid of that habit.”

Nevertheless, the budding star’s work ethic and persistence has positioned herself to take college basketball by storm this fall.

“She is, quite frankly, better than some of the NBA guys I’ve worked with at understanding what needs to be done day in and day out to create new improvement opportunities for herself,” NBA trainer Brandon Payne told Barnes.

Alexa Philippou can be reached at aphilippou@courant.com