Losing a generational talent like Paige Bueckers can change the fabric of a team and shake a program’s foundation. That was not the case for Geno Auriemma’s UConn team. Despite losing Bueckers to the Dallas Wings in the 2025 WNBA Draft, the Huskies put together an undefeated season and waltzed back into the Final Four—a rematch of last year’s title game against South Carolina.
UConn’s roster still features many familiar faces, like Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd, and KK Arnold, but their roles are different. With the team’s leading scorer and playmaker from last season gone, Strong and Fudd have had to shoulder a bigger load in the former category, and Arnold has had to step up as a playmaker.
UConn alum and 2011 WNBA All-Star Renee Montgomery also pointed out how much pressure Bueckers’s absence puts on Azzi Fudd in the later rounds of this year’s tournament.
“When you have a player like Paige that you know is going to be the one that probably takes the shot at the end of the game or passes to the person to get them an open shot at the end of the game, it takes a lot of pressure off of you,” Montgomery said when she and Lisa Leslie appeared on We Need to Talk. “So this year, Azzi is that player that is going to have to be taking that shot at the end and/or creating that shot.”
UConn hasn’t played any close games in the tournament yet
While Fudd and Strong have become the indisputable leaders and go-to scorers for UConn this season, Fudd hasn’t been in a position to take a big late-game shot to keep her senior season alive. UConn has breezed through the postseason so far.
The Huskies beat UTSA by 38 points in the first round. Then, they got a 53-point victory over Syracuse in the second round behind a 34-point effort from Fudd. North Carolina posed a bigger challenge in the Sweet 16, but UConn still won that game by 21 points. In the Elite Eight, Hannah Hidalgo tried to bother UConn with all her might, but Strong, Fudd, and freshman Blanca Quiñonez still led the Huskies to an 18-point victory.
The Final Four promises to be a closer game and the first real challenge UConn will face in the postseason. South Carolina took down Southern University, USC, Oklahoma, and TCU with a string of dominant wins not unlike UConn’s run to the Final Four.
The Gamecocks are also hungry to avenge last year’s 82-59 loss to UConn in the National Championship game and have all the tools to make it an interesting game. Raven Johnson has grown tremendously as a scorer, Joyce Edwards is a more experienced player, Madina Okot adds size and rim protection, Ta’Niya Latson gives the team an offensive weapon it didn’t have last year, and freshman Agot Makeer started to break out at just the right time.
This may be the game in which Fudd will feel the pressure of Bueckers’s absence.