The UConn women’s basketball team may have lost an irreplaceable piece of its 2025 NCAA Championship roster in No. 1 WNBA Draft pick Paige Bueckers, but Geno Auriemma doesn’t seem concerned. The longtime head coach could hardly contain a delighted grin when he brought up star guard Azzi Fudd‘s performance since the team began summer workouts at the start of June.

“I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen Azzi this aggressive, this engaged in wanting to do a lot, and that’s probably stood out more than anything else,” Auriemma said Monday ahead of his annual “Geno For The Kids” charity golf tournament at the Hartford Golf Club.

Advertisement

Fudd, the most outstanding player of the Final Four, came to UConn as the top-ranked recruit in the Class of 2021, but the redshirt senior has been heavily impacted by injuries since she arrived on campus. She appeared in just 42 total games over three years before playing 34 in 2024-25, and she was still limited at the start of last season as she completed the rehabilitation process for an ACL tear suffered in November 2023.

But for the first time in her career, Fudd entered the 2025 offseason healthy and with sky-high expectations for herself. Auriemma said with Bueckers gone, Fudd is embracing her role as a true centerpiece for the Huskies in her fifth year.

“Her personality is such that she likes being in the background to somebody else, whoever that may be,” Auriemma said. “She likes when there’s a lot of other good players on the team … but what happened in the Final Four I think may have changed her. I hope it has, anyway.”

Fudd isn’t the only superstar who has taken a leap since hoisting the national championship trophy. Sarah Strong, the 2025 WBCA Freshman of the Year, looks better than ever heading into her sophomore campaign — and that’s a high bar to clear after averaging 16.4 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.3 steals in her first collegiate season.

Advertisement

“She’s just more aggressive, more assertive, more ‘If I don’t like the way things are going, I want to take over,’” Auriemma said. “Between (Azzi) and Sarah, the two of them have had some great battles on the court. It’s been really fun to watch.”

Injury updates

The Huskies have 15 scholarship players on the roster in 2025 for the first time in years, and it’s also the first time since 2020 that the team has been almost fully healthy for its summer session workouts. The only player currently sidelined is sophomore guard Morgan Cheli, who underwent season-ending surgery on her ankle on Feb. 21. Cheli averaged 13.3 minutes per game in her freshman season and was seeing increased playing time before the injury, but Auriemma said it will be a slow process getting her back on the court without restrictions.

Redshirt junior forward Ayanna Patterson is fully participating in practice after undergoing her own season-ending surgery for a shoulder injury in December. Patterson hasn’t appeared in a game for the Huskies since March 2023: She missed her entire sophomore year to have surgery for patellar tendonitis that had impacted her since high school, and she was poised to return to the court in 2024-25 until injuring her shoulder during preseason workouts.

Advertisement

Auriemma also noted that redshirt senior Caroline Ducharme looks as comfortable on the court as she has in years after a series of head and neck injuries sidelined her for all but four games in 2023-24. Ducharme was finally cleared to play late last season, appearing in nine games for the Huskies including three NCAA Tournament matchups, but she never saw the court for more than 11 total minutes. In 2025-26, Auriemma is optimistic about getting the former No. 5 recruit more involved.

“It’s not like all of a sudden she’s going to go out there and be able to play 30 minutes, but she’s there for six, seven, eight minutes in a row and doesn’t play any different than she did when she was the best player on the team when she was a freshman and we had all those injuries,” Auriemma said. “And it’s great having her on the team too, because her voice is the loudest voice on the team. So I’m really, really happy for her and wish nothing but success for her this year. It would really mean a lot if we were able to count on her for some things.”

Newbies adjusting

Auriemma said he was prepared to “run it back” with his players already in the building entering 2025-26, but it was a pleasant surprise to find a pair of perfect fits for the team’s needs in the transfer portal. Ex-Wisconsin star Serah Williams signed with UConn to provide a badly-needed veteran presence in the frontcourt, and the Huskies also picked up former USC guard Kayleigh Heckel, who was a top-15 prospect in the Class of 2024.

Advertisement

“It’s been really, really competitive in our workouts, because everybody wants to play. The problem is, not everybody’s going to play as much as they think they’re going to or they want to play,” Auriemma said. “I think the workouts are more grueling and tougher and more competitive because they can be. All these years we had six or seven (healthy) guys on the team … there was no competition for spots or for playing time, so it’s been really good.”

UConn also has three incoming freshmen joining the roster this season, though forward Blanca Quinonez is not yet on campus as she completes the graduation requirements in Italy where she attends high school. Quinonez is from Ecuador originally but has played professionally in Italy for the last five years.

Auriemma said he tries not to pass judgment on players based on summer training, especially for newcomers who are still learning the ropes, but he said freshmen Kelis Fisher and Gandy Malou-Mamel are already bringing a positive dynamic to the locker room.

“Gandy is 18 going on 32, and Kelis is 18 going on 12, so we’re having fun with all that,” Auriemma joked. “Kelis said her nickname is ‘Big Fish.’ I said who calls you that other than you? I said I’ve never heard anybody call you ‘Big Fish.’ So she’s already delusional.”

Incoming freshman Kelis Fisher brings national championship experience to UConn women’s basketball