KK Arnold has more college basketball experience over her first two seasons at UConn than most players her age, stepping into a starting role in her freshman year and playing significant minutes during every step of the team’s journey to the 2025 NCAA Championship.
But it still hasn’t quite hit the the junior guard that she’s officially an upperclassman now that the Huskies are back on campus for summer workouts preparing for the 2025-26 season.
“It’s very sickening to think about,” Arnold joked after practice last week. “But it’s a new opportunity, a new road to come upon, so I’m excited … I’ve had different roles over the last two years, but I’m coming in this year knowing the type of voice I have and knowing how many underclassmen and new people we have. So just knowing the ropes around our program … and how we go about things on the court I think will help.”
Junior classmate Ashlynn Shade is also coming to terms with her new role as one of the most experienced voices on the roster, and she said the coaching staff had an explicit conversation with her about the importance of stepping up as a leader this season. Shade started 33 games alongside Arnold as a freshman in 2023-24, and though her minutes took a dip in her sophomore campaign, Shade still averaged a career-high in steals and shot 41.1% from 3-point range.
“I want to challenge myself this year by being another leader for this team,” Shade said. “I think I’ve kind of had to force myself into that position of trying to be vocal, trying to help out the younger guys because my coaches asked me to do that more, but it definitely feels weird ending last year and realizing like, oh my god, I’m two years into college and I’m almost done. It’s the weirdest feeling, but I finally feel like I’m adjusting to that and it’s becoming more normal.”
UConn guard Ashlynn Shade (12) reacts in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Southern California, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
The Huskies will need their juniors to come into their own quickly to help manage the biggest roster they’ve had in years with 15 scholarship players, including two first-year transfers and three incoming freshmen. Though the team graduated just three members from its national championship squad, there’s a leadership vacuum left without superstar Paige Bueckers and starting point guard Kaitlyn Chen. Bueckers was the unquestioned voice of the team almost as soon as she arrived on campus in 2020, and Shade said it’s been an adjustment without that presence to lean on for the first time in five years.
“We lost such a big leader in Paige, and so we’re just trying to do our best to kind of carry on that leadership and not let it slip,” Shade said. “Knowing that we had Paige and now we don’t, that’s not going to change our goals or our mission … It makes it easier when you have someone like Paige in those tough moments, but I think it’s going to challenge us this season and make us even better as a team and a whole when we have to rely on all of each other rather than just one person.”
An obvious option to fill those shoes is redshirt senior Azzi Fudd, the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four and one of the faces of the program now that Bueckers is off in the WNBA. Fudd is no stranger to the spotlight as a former No. 1 recruit and has always demanded attention on the court, but she admits she prefers to lead by example rather than with her voice. Becoming more outspoken is a slow and at times uncomfortable process for Fudd, but it’s one she’s committed herself to during the upcoming offseason.
“I’m taking it progressively, so like one step at a time just saying the things I see, whether it’s starting with stuff like on defense or offense, ‘Here comes a screen,’ or ‘Switch this or that,’” Fudd said. “We’ve been playing a lot more pickup, and that’s been really helpful for me to have my team, and we’ll have a team huddle before and after or during the game … It’s a learning process, and I’m going to get better.”
Redshirt senior Caroline Ducharme also wasn’t naturally vocal when she came to UConn alongside Fudd as the No. 5 recruit in the Class of 2021. But after she was sidelined for nearly two years by a series of head and neck injuries, Ducharme developed the skill out of necessity. She wanted to stay involved with the team as much as possible while she was out, and she realized that her player’s perspective from the bench made her leadership uniquely valuable to her teammates.
UConn’s Caroline Ducharme calls out to her team while a bag of ice is applied to her head during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Villanova in the finals of the Big East Conference tournament Monday, March 6, 2023, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Now that Ducharme is back on the court, coach Geno Auriemma says she’s been the loudest voice in the gym throughout summer workouts.
“When I came in he was probably thinking, ‘When is she going to start talking?’” Ducharme said with a smile. “It took me a while to get going, but then I feel like being out, it kind of dawned on me that that was going to be my only way to still have an impact on the team and on what was going on on the court. I had to use my voice because I wasn’t playing … and now it’s just carried over to being able to play.”
The Huskies’ ultimate goal this season is to run back their national championship, but they’re up against difficult odds: Only four programs in the history of the women’s NCAA Tournament have won consecutive titles, and no one has accomplished a repeat since Breanna Stewart led UConn to four straight from 2012-16.
But Fudd believes that the 2025-26 Huskies are uniquely positioned for success because they aren’t trying to find a singular replacement for Bueckers’ presence. Instead, she believes they’ll thrive with leadership coming by committee and each player leaning in to their individual strengths.
“What’s special about this team is that we have so many guys who have played a lot and have that experience and that confidence,” Fudd said. “Not that any year one person was the one and only leader, but I think this year it’s going to be everyone. Ash is stepping up and saying more, KK has been on the sideline coaching and telling people what to do, and Carolina, so I think it’s going to be kind of like the whole team leads — and I love that.”
How Azzi Fudd is finding her leadership voice for UConn women’s run for repeat