NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 22:Azzi Fudd talks with Sue Bird about her experiences as part of the UConn Huskies during the Deep Blue Business of Women’s Sport Summit at Chelsea Factory on April 22, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) 
A year ago, Azzi Fudd won a national championship.
She was named Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four, she was eligible for the WNBA Draft, and she had every reason to walk out of Storrs on top. But you know what she did? She came back anyway.
Now she’s in her final semester at UConn, the Huskies are undefeated heading into March Madness, and she’s the projected number one pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft. We all have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé, and Fudd might be the closest thing to proof.
Because, let’s be clear: coming back for a fifth year when you’ve already reached the mountaintop is not something every player would do. But for Fudd it was less a calculated decision and more just who she is, and that’s someone who has never been willing to leave anything on the table. And it’s safe to say, she made a good bet on herself.
Ask her how she’s processing all of that and she’ll be the first to tell you she’s mostly choosing not to. “Obviously you really can’t not think about it,” she says. “So it’s there, but my goal this year was to be super present. I know how easy it is to get caught up in all the exciting things that are coming up in three weeks. But I’m also very aware that this is my last time in college. This is my last time with this team and this program doing so many things with them.”
Fudd came to UConn in 2021 as the number one recruit in her class, and a McDonald’s All-American from St. John’s College High School in Washington D.C. She had already made history before she ever stepped foot on campus, becoming the first sophomore ever to win the Gatorade National Player of the Year award. So the talent itself was never the question.
What followed was a college career that tested her in ways most players never have to face. Foot and knee injuries in back to back years, and then in November 2023, a torn ACL and meniscus just two games into her junior season, and her second ACL tear overall. She spent most of that year watching from the sideline. When she finally got back on the floor for her senior year, she helped UConn win the title. And when she talks about being present and soaking in every moment of this final season, there are a lot of years and a lot of hard road behind that.
She used to be superstitious, but at some point this year she made a conscious decision to let that go. “I was like, this is a waste of time and energy. I need to stop this.” What replaced it is three non-negotiables she swears by before every single game: a devotional, soft tissue body work, and yes, a pregame bathroom stop. “I have to take a pregame poop,” she says.
The pregame meal is just as important, always the same veggie egg scramble with mashed raspberries and honey on toast. “It’s simple, but it’s my favorite pregame meal,” she says. Her playlist follows its own order too, always opening with gospel, Kirk Franklin or Koryn Hawthorne, before her roommate inevitably takes over the aux and steers things somewhere else entirely like one of the Baby rappers (Lil or Da).
Fudd is also one of the faces of Marriott Bonvoy’s new “Where Gameday Checks In” campaign, which celebrates the off-court moments that live in between the games, the hotel hallway pep talks, the pre-game meals, and the late nights with teammates on the road. When you ask her what she’ll remember most about this final season at UConn, she talks about the time spent with her teammates in hotel rooms, the movie nights, learning TikTok dances together, sitting around debriefing practice the night before a big game, and how those are the moments she’ll carry with her long after she leaves Storrs.
It’s also why the noise surrounding her right now doesn’t seem to rattle her the way it might someone else. “I feel like I’ve done a great job of managing pressure this year and even though March is the biggest time of the year, it’s like, why let myself get caught up in all that now? …as long as the team is winning, I’m winning.”
And that same energy is what she’s carrying with her into the WNBA and into this particular moment in the league’s history. “This is the best time to be a women’s basketball player,” she says, “and I can’t really emphasize enough how grateful I am, like to be a part of it at this time and also how grateful I am for everyone that’s come before and really like laid that foundation and set that path and made it possible for me.”
And just as the women before her shaped what this moment looks like for her, she’s thinking about the little girls watching UConn play this March and what she wants them to take from it. “I hope that when people watch us play, they’re able to just see the joy and passion we have for the game, but then also for each other,” she says. “It’s so easy to get caught up, especially in this day and age with social media and like everything is like me, me, me, how important it is to have teammates that you love and you want to play for, not just with.”
The post Before Every Game, Azzi Fudd Does The Same Three Things appeared first on Essence.
Author: Kimberly Wilson
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