The Huskies walloped the Bruins, 85–51, dominating from start to finish. / Erick W. Rasco/ Sports Illustrated
TAMPA — The last time Azzi Fudd appeared in a Final Four game, she played 16 minutes in a loss. This time, she needed only 20 to win the game. She had 19 points and three steals at halftime, the UConn Huskies had a 42–22 lead, and the UCLA Bruins’ No. 1 overall ranking suddenly seemed to belong on a fake ID.
We swear that’s us, Officer. We admit it doesn’t look like us. The lighting was weird, and we hadn’t been Azzi-ed yet.
“My mindset tonight,” Fudd said afterward, “was just to be aggressive on the defensive end.”
Maybe that’s why she took just one shot in the second half. Not that it mattered. The final score, it feels rude to mention, was UConn 85, UCLA 51. The Bruins did not play well, but come on: The way UConn is playing, how well would have been well enough?
“I don’t think we made a mistake the entire evening, especially on the defensive end,” Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said.
To which Paige Bueckers replied with a sly smile: “I mean, we haven’t watched film yet.”
UConn has won its five women’s NCAA tournament games by an average of 35 points. When this thing ends, the USC Trojans might hang a banner that reads Only Lost to UConn by 14 Without JuJu! The Huskies have lost once in 2025, and yes, Big East blah blah yawn yawn, but they beat South Carolina by 29 points in Columbia. They led that one, 45–23, at halftime. So while the Huskies probably won’t run the Gamecocks off the floor in the title game like they did the Bruins in the Final Four, it’s well within the range of reasonable outcomes. After all, they have already done it once.
Fudd scored 28 points against South Carolina in February. But here is the crazy part: Bueckers shot 3-for-12 that day. She shot 3-for-10 in the first half against UCLA. Bueckers’s extraordinary tourney run created the impression that UConn reached a higher level when she did. Still, there is ample evidence that UConn can reach that level even when Bueckers doesn’t. This is a juggernaut.
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“We never get complacent with our performance,” Fudd said. “We’ll wake up tomorrow, it’s a new day, a new scout.”
If anybody can beat the Huskies, it’s South Carolina. After all, South Carolina is the only other team still playing. But also: The Gamecocks are the only team that can honestly expect to put a more talented team on the floor for at least some of the game.
UConn’s starting five is better. But South Carolina’s team is probably deeper. If the Gamecocks play as well in Sunday’s whole game as they did in the second half against Texas on Friday, this will be an epic final.
The Gamecocks are also defending champions, and maybe that will give them confidence, but it won’t faze UConn at all. Most of all, what stood out about UConn’s obliteration of UCLA was that from the first minute, the Huskies looked like the tougher team. Everything they did, they did with such authority that the Bruins seemed flustered by it. UCLA players not named Lauren Betts scored 25 points and had 18 turnovers. (Betts had 26 points herself.)
“I think our guys played about as hard as kids can play,” Auriemma said.
Azzi Fudd (35) had 19 points against UCLA, all scored in the first half of the game. / Erick W. Rasco/ Sports Illustrated
Fudd and Bueckers have been UConn teammates for four years but have not won a national championship, which feels more and more like a function of circumstance and luck. They haven’t been healthy together at this time of year since they were freshmen. Bueckers missed the tournament when they were sophomores, and Fudd missed it last year.
When UConn last played in the national championship game in 2022, Fudd scored three points in a 64–49 loss to South Carolina. Well, she was a freshman playing against a loaded Gamecocks team. In UConn’s Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State in 2023, she shot 6-for-17. Well, she was still recovering from a knee injury, and she had to make up for the absence of Bueckers.
Bueckers and Fudd are healthy and rolling now. Freshman Sarah Strong scored an efficient 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds in her first Final Four game; she is already a star.
“If Paige had the kind of game that she had today in previous years,” Auriemma said, “we wouldn’t have won.”
This time, they won by 34. They completely dominated a 34–2 team. Bueckers said that coming in, “We didn’t think we’d played our best game yet.” South Carolina better hope this was it.
Published 4 Minutes Ago|Modified 1:59 AM EDT
