UConn Huskies star guard Azzi Fudd will not enter the 2025 WNBA Draft and will instead return to Storrs, Connecticut for the 2025-2026 women’s college basketball season.
Fudd, who is eligible for the draft as a junior because she’s already 22 years old, announced she’d be coming back to UConn on Tuesday morning on her Instagram, writing: “Hey Gampel, thanks for last night… See you next year,” accompanied by the hashtag “#onemoreyear.”
In UConn’s second-round NCAA Tournament win on Monday night over No. 10 South Dakota State, Fudd finished with 17 points, two steals and a rebound in a lopsided 91-57 victory for the Huskies. This season, she’s averaging 13.4 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game while shooting 45.3 percent from 3-point land, which is 23rd in the nation.
Fudd told ESPN that a recent talk with longtime UConn coach Geno Auriemma helped her make her decision.
“He said, ‘I would say 10 games, maybe, you’ve played to your full potential of who Azzi Fudd really is and so you wouldn’t do yourself justice leaving,’” Fudd recalled Auriemma saying. “You would leave here not doing what you could in a UConn uniform.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, he has a point.’”
UConn is now the favorite at many sportsbooks to win the national championship this year after USC star sophomore JuJu Watkins suffered what seems to be a season-ending ACL tear in the Trojans’ second-round win on Monday night over Mississippi State. Before a potential matchup with the Trojans in the Elite Eight, UConn must first defeat Oklahoma in the Sweet 16.
Fudd is enjoying the healthiest season of her career after battling injuries early in her time at UConn, including a torn ACL in November 2023. Fudd was ranked as the No. 1 recruit in her 2021 high school class and has long been heralded for her smooth, near-perfect, textbook jumpshot.
Other players with the option to enter the WNBA Draft this year or next may follow her path because opting for the 2026 draft may be more lucrative. Salaries in the league are expected to increase as players negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.
Auriemma recently told Maggie Vanoni of CT Insider: “If (Fudd) stays one more year, she’ll make more money next year when she goes into the draft because they have a new collective bargaining agreement coming up that should pay them more money than if she goes at the end of this year.”
There’s a good chance Fudd would have been a first-round pick in this spring’s draft, where her teammate Paige Bueckers is expected to go No. 1 overall. If Fudd keeps playing this efficiently, she’s a likely lock to be a high first-round pick next year too.
