Fudd heeds Geno's nail tips, powers 53-point win

STORRS, Conn. — In her last game at Gampel Pavilion, UConn star Azzi Fudd made sure to go out on a high note.

Fudd, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 WNBA draft, rattled off 26 of her career-high-tying 34 points in the first half, leading the No. 1 overall seed Huskies to their 32nd straight Sweet 16 appearance behind a 98-45 clobbering of No. 9 seed Syracuse.

“I felt like I reached flow state for a second,” Fudd said. “My teammates were just finding me, setting me great screens … I feel like I wasn’t really thinking. When I was open, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to shoot it.'”

The Huskies — now four wins away from an undefeated season and back-to-back national championships — have won 52 consecutive games, the fifth-longest streak in Division I history. They’ll face No. 4 seed North Carolina on Friday for a spot in the Elite Eight.

Fudd’s onslaught came two days after a tough individual start to the NCAA tournament: The senior guard sat most of the first half against UTSA after picking up three first-quarter fouls, and then finished with only seven points (3-for-9 shooting).

In between games, coach Geno Auriemma wanted Fudd to take her mind off her shooting woes, and so jokingly suggested she trim her fingernails.

“It’ll make the ball happy, and the ball will like you, and you’ll make more shots,” he jested. “She and Ice [Brady] looked at me like I was an idiot, and I walked away, I said, ‘Look, I don’t believe it either, but it’s worth trying.'”

Whether it was Auriemma’s advice or shooter’s luck, Fudd (13-18 FG, 8-11 from 3) and the Huskies benefited Monday night.

Her offensive explosion in the second quarter, during which she hit four of her career-high-tying eight 3-pointers, fueled a 31-0 Huskies run that brought the crowd to its feet. The burst helped balloon their lead to 65-12 going into the break — good for the second-largest halftime lead in NCAA tournament history.

“We were pretty focused, and we were pretty locked in together,” Auriemma said. “That’s the best half of basketball, best 20 minutes, that I’ve seen in a long, long time from our team. Not just this team, it’s happened other times, but this is about as good as it gets.”

The Huskies shined on both ends of the floor, their defensive pressure creating a multitude of opportunities to score on the other end and their unselfishness with the ball leading the way. In the first half alone, they shot 66% with 20 assists on 27 field goals, while also coming away with 13 steals and holding the Orange scoreless for over 10 minutes of gametime.

Always one to nit-pick his teams in the pursuit of perfection, Auriemma was relatively speechless with his players at the half.

“It was just kind of funny for [Auriemma] to walk in with no comments,” junior guard Ashlynn Shade said. “He kind of laughed, and we were like, ‘OK!’ He was just like, ‘Great half of basketball.'”

“When you have really good players that want to play together and they want to share the ball, things like that can happen,” Auriemma said. “You just marvel at the things that they can do when they’re all in sync, because it doesn’t happen very often, or often enough. But what I was watching that first half, I knew I was watching something that was pretty.”

Fudd — who also finished with five assists, four steals and three rebounds — was flanked by strong nights from sophomore star Sarah Strong (18 points, 9 rebounds) and freshman standout Blanca Quiñonez (18 points, 4 assists). Syracuse was led by top scorer Uche Izoje (12 points).