Azzi Fudd fumbles through a new card game called Dinger on an October morning at UConn’s practice facility, smiling as she consults my handwritten instructions. In gray sweatpants and a pink sweatshirt, she talks about summers playing Uno at her grandparents’ lake house in Minnesota and how she learned Spades last year waiting in an airport in China next to Stephen Curry. She squints at her hand, lays down cards, and announces, “Done,” with the same calm that has marked her comeback season.
Fudd is the 5-foot-11 guard who helped lead UConn to its 12th national championship last spring and earned Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors. Since then she’s been to New York Fashion Week, launched a podcast, taken a family cruise and rubbed shoulders with Curry overseas. But mostly she spent the offseason the way she always does: in gyms, grinding on the tiny details of her craft.
After three injury-plagued seasons that limited her to 42 games, Fudd returned for a healthier fourth season and decided she wasn’t ready for the WNBA. In March, at her grandparents’ cottage near campus, she told her parents through tears that she wanted to stay in Storrs — to keep building her game and her
