STORRS — They have seen them play together, or separately. In some cases have played against them. Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd represent the last UConn championship, and the new wave of Huskies in the WNBA.
Top draft picks in back-to-back years, they are thriving in Dallas, leading the Wings into playoff contention.
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“They know how to play off each other,” said KK Arnold, the Huskies’ senior point guard. “That’s a great Dallas team they have. Paige and Azzi, they’ve always had that connection. Paige knows where to find her spots, and Azzi knows where to find Paige. As they play collectively, it’s a very fun team to watch.”
As a parting gift to the state that saved their franchise, the Connecticut Sun will play the second of two games scheduled for People’s Bank Arena on Thursday night at 8 p.m., a stage for Bueckers and Fudd to play in familiar building, scene of some of their great moments at UConn. They planned dinner in Hartford with the UConn team Wednesday night, and the entire team plans to be in People’s Bank to cheer them on. This figures to be a Sun home game in name only, even more so with Sarah Strong, KK Arnold the the rest of the Huskies in the arena.
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“It’s really cool to get to see them in Connecticut, especially with (the Sun) moving to Houston, it’s cool we get one more chance to see them play here,” said Kayleigh Heckel, who played against Bueckers and Fudd while at Southern Cal, before transferring to UConn last season. “You see they play really well together, whenever they play together, since they were young, before they came to UConn.”
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Bueckers and Fudd, both of whom had more than their share of injuries while at UConn, did not get to play together nearly as much as they’d planned when Fudd joined Bueckers in Storrs in the summer of 2021. When things finally aligned for them in 2025, the result was the program’s 12th national championship.
The Wings used the No.1 pick to take Bueckers in ’25, and she was the WNBA’s near-unanimous Rookie of the Year, averaging 19.2 points, 5.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds per game. However, Dallas finished 10-34 and got the first pick in The Draft all over again. Last April they chose Fudd, shortly after UConn was eliminated in the Final Four.
There were questions at the time. Did Fudd fill the franchise’s needs? Was she picked solely because of their relationship? But the Wings, it turns out, played it right. They signed the front court help they needed in free agency, the Paige-Azzi backcourt has ignited the franchise — and they are making mid-range pull-ups fashionable again in The W.
The Wings (11-8), under new coach Jose Fernandez, are four games behind the Lynx in the Western Conference and currently hold the No. 6 seed for a playoff spot as the season nears its midpoint. Bueckers is averaging 19.9 points, 5.9 assists and 3.8 rebounds, Fudd 13.6 points.
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At their best, they combined for 48 points in a win over the Liberty in New York on May 24. The Wings return to Brooklyn July 7, when Geno Auriemma will join the ESPN broadcast.
“It feels a little weird that they’re pros now and they’re playing together, it’s great to see,” said Jana El Alfy, now the longest tenured Husky. “They have great chemistry. From playing with them to watching them, you just know they’ve been playing together a long time and know how to find each other. I just think it’s awesome.”
Arnold traveled to Dallas to see them earlier in the season.
“They’ve had to just be aggressive,” Arnold said. “They’re both unselfish people, so being that aggressor starting off. Once they start off aggressive, they just open up the floor for so many of their teammates and you can see that. Once one person gets hot on that team, it gets crazy for any other team in the league.”
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Junior Allie Ziebell said, “You can just see how much chemistry they have, and how much it translates from here to there. Watching all their plays. It’s just really cool to see Azzi develop more and get more comfortable in the league.”
The Sun (4-15) have been competitive in most games this season, and have picked up a couple of wins lately. On Thursday, they will honor former coach Curt Miller, now the GM in Dallas who reunited Bueckers and Fudd, as one of their “Sun Legends” on the banner to remain in the rafters at Mohegan Sun Arena after the franchise relocates to Houston.
The game will be a sellout, or at least approach it, with the FanFest on Pratt Street from 4-7 p.m. For Huskies fans, watching Bueckers and Fudd will require a trip to New York for the foreseeable future. But for one more night, they belong in, and to Connecticut. For one more night, they will be reminded again they are Huskies. And even the newer Huskies figure to benefit from the experience or watching them work the room together.
“It’s really cool to be able to see them on the same team again and it’s really cool for our team to get to watch them play,” Heckel said. “You can always take something from watching players like that.”
