- UConn Huskies star Azzi Fudd is out for the season with a torn right ACL and meniscus.
- The sharpshooter will take inspiration for her recovery from her superstar teammate, Paige Bueckers.
UConn star Azzi Fudd received the devastating news this week that her 2023-2024 season was over after what Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma speculated could be a '"minor" injury turned out to be a torn ACL and meniscus in her right knee.
If there's any silver lining for the Huskies sharpshooter — who is set to miss all but two games of her junior year after playing just 15 games as a sophomore and missing 11 games as a freshman — it's that she has a stellar blueprint to follow en route to her comeback.
After her superstar teammate, Paige Bueckers, suffered an ACL tear of her own less than a year after fracturing her tibia and tearing her meniscus in that same knee, Fudd looked on as the 2021 NCAA Player of the Year redoubled her efforts to become a stronger and more resilient basketball player. As detailed in a profile from ESPN's Alexa Philippou, Bueckers went to painstaking lengths off the court to minimize her chances of injury and maximize her time playing the game she loves.
Even before suffering her latest setback, Fudd told Insider she took inspiration from the sensational point guard.
"I feel like it gets so easy to be like, 'Oh, my knees are feeling better' or 'Oh, I'm starting to feel good again. I'm not going to do this,'" Fudd told Insider. "But seeing Paige and having her here… seeing her do all that has helped me stay on top of my stuff."
"I'll even do some of her stuff with her," she added.
Fudd detailed the measures she takes "every single time before I step on the court" to get her body ready for gameplay. She spends some time wearing air compression boots to help increase blood flow and decrease soreness in her legs, then she uses a foam roller and stretches to make sure her body is ready for the demands of a game.
She also gets her ankles taped and does preparatory foot exercises using a device called a BlackBoard, which "helps to open my foot up and make space — it loosens it up."
"I have learned how important prehab and warming up your body is," Fudd told Insider. "I feel like my body is older than it is."
"I blame my mom for those genes mostly," she added with a smirk.
The road looks rather different now that she's staring down surgery and six to nine months of rehab, but dedicating herself to her routines will only become more important. She'll undoubtedly look to replicate Bueckers' comeback approach — which featured lots of pilates, intensive prehab, increased weight training, cleaner eating, better sleep habits, and more — in order to come back stronger than ever.
"She's been very, very diligent with being on top of her stuff," Fudd said of Bueckers. "Having someone like Paige here really helps me stay on track with that kind of stuff."