As soon as she arrived at the postgame press conference after the UConn women’s basketball team’s Big East Tournament win over Villanova, Azzi Fudd had a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
Without missing a beat, the redshirt senior snatched Sarah Strong‘s name plate from the far end of the table and thrust it at junior point guard KK Arnold, who immediately understood to swap it with Fudd’s name positioned in front of the seat next to coach Geno Auriemma’s.
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“No!” Strong yelled as she trailed into the room behind her teammates.
“Should’ve been faster,” Fudd teased in a sing-song voice. “Shouldn’t have been the MVP.”
Auriemma watched the chaos unfold wearing a bemused smirk. As soon as Strong sat down beside him, he cracked open a water bottle and flicked a few droplets directly into the sophomore forward’s face. Arnold dissolved into giggles while Strong dramatically wiped at her eyes.
“That’s my statement,” Auriemma quipped with a grin.
There’s always a certain euphoria in the aftermath of a championship, brought on by the confetti and trophies and custom T-shirts. But the display after winning the Big East Tournament title captured a lightheartedness that this UConn team has had all season, an energy that makes them unlike any group Auriemma has coached in 41 seasons at the helm of the program.
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Generations of Huskies alumni still bemoan the rigors Auriemma put them through in college and complain that the famously tough head coach has gone soft with age. On Monday night, Auriemma all but admitted that they’re right.
“As you get older, you get a little more patient and appreciative of your life and enjoy it more, or you get older and get a little bit more cranky,” Auriemma said following his team’s 90-51 rout of Villanova in the championship game. “I’ve had just enough crankiness this year, but because of the way they are, they make it hard for you to stay cranky and stay agitated with them. They enjoy what they do. They enjoy each other’s company. They have a blast when they’re around each other.”
When senior center Serah Williams transferred in from Wisconsin at the start of this season, that joyfulness was the thing that surprised her the most about UConn. She was prepared for the intensity of practices, the demanding culture of playing for a championship program, but she never expected to bond so quickly and deeply with her brand new teammates.
“We’re all goofy. No one’s like stiff and can’t have any fun,” Williams said. “I think we all have a certain looseness to us, and playing here, I think that’s important. … It gives you that other side, of when you’re training hard every day, to be able to go home and hang out with everyone is a great way to end — and sometimes start — your day.”
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The last time Auriemma led the Huskies to back-to-back national titles was in 2016, when Breanna Stewart’s legendary team completed the first four-peat in the history of women’s college basketball. That run was so stressful for Auriemma that he was physically ill at the end of it: He missed the celebratory parade through downtown Hartford and was hospitalized 10 days after the championship game.
But as UConn embarks on another attempt to repeat in the 2026 NCAA Tournament beginning next week, the feeling couldn’t be more different.
“We’re going to have fun when it’s time to have fun, and we’re going to work hard when it’s time to work hard,” Auriemma said. “They’re a team that is really bonded together on a common goal. They just want to spend time together, and they want to play hard for each other. What more can you ask? If you were to look at this team individually, I don’t know how many of these kids are even first team all-Big East players … but when you put them all together, they just have an incredible chemistry, and that makes it all work.”
While carrying the title of defending champions can heighten pressure, it’s done the opposite for the 2025-26 Huskies. Fudd remembers how much tension she felt within the team at this time last year, a looming sense of “or else” laced through the desire to win it all. It was the last chance for superstar guard Paige Bueckers to win at UConn, to avoid the title of ‘best Huskies player to ever graduate without a national championship’.
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Fudd and Bueckers were both fully healthy at the same time for the first time in their college careers after injuries plagued the program for four straight seasons. If the Huskies wanted to end a nine-year NCAA title drought, 2025 seemed like the best chance they were going to get.
UConn accomplished the fairytale ending when Bueckers walked off the floor and into a tearful embrace with Auriemma minutes before the team secured its 12th national championship with an 82-59 win over South Carolina. Auriemma described it as one of the most emotional moments of his career, years of struggle and disappointment cumulating in the catharsis of finally accomplishing that ultimate goal.
Regardless of what happens this year, Fudd will leave college as a national champion — and the Most Outstanding Player of one of the most dominant runs in Final Four history. That doesn’t remove the pressure or the motivation to win again, especially because of the astronomical standard set by UConn’s legacy of success, but there’s a different confidence and ease that comes from knowing exactly what it takes to stand at center court holding the NCAA trophy at the end of the season.
“There was a crazy energy last year, but it was that intense pressure like we need to get this done,” Fudd said. “I think there were perks to (that), but it’s definitely a benefit being on this side knowing and having gone through that; having that experience through so many of our teammates and then being able to build on that this whole year. We’re definitely in a better place.”
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The biggest question as the Huskies head into March Madness is whether the absence of that tension will ultimately serve them, because it was a major piece of what fueled the team to its 2025 title. But Auriemma isn’t worried about players finding a new edge, in part because Bueckers left them with a plenty big chip on their shoulders.
“I think they would be really, really pissed if we didn’t win this thing at the thought of her saying, ‘You couldn’t do it without me,’” Auriemma said with a grin. “That probably motivates them more than anything you could imagine. Their respect for her is so great that they probably went into the season with the specter of, ‘They just lost arguably the best player in the country, and there’s no way they can repeat.’
“I think there’s a real drive in them to prove it, that we’re worthy.”
