TAMPA, Fla. -- A year ago during the NCAA tournament, Azzi Fudd woke up before the sun crept over the horizon. Not for practice or drills or conditioning. The UConn guard woke up so she could rehab her right knee. She had torn her ACL -- for the second time -- during a practice two games into the 2023-24 season.
Sometimes the hotel didn't have the equipment she was accustomed to, so she improvised. That was OK; she had improvised before. In high school, when she tore her ACL the first time, gyms were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So Fudd climbed onto the top of her bedroom dresser with weights strapped to her ankles to do leg extensions.
Throughout last year's tournament, she did her work alone in the mornings so she could support her teammates on the bench at night.
"I was trying to do everything possible that I could hoping that in a year I could be on the court," Fudd said.
On Sunday afternoon, the graduate student accepted the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player award, eyes widening in surprise as her name was called. She had 24 points on 9-of-17 shooting and three steals to help UConn secure its 12th national title after an 82-59 win over South Carolina.
"I knew I was going to give it my all, leave everything on the floor for that 40 minutes," Fudd said after the game. "I was just trying to have fun with it."
This kind of fun had been a long time coming.
THE PUREST SHOT in women's basketball was built years ago in Virginia. To get her snappy release, Fudd's parents, Katie and Tim, bounced or tossed countless balls to her when she was a kid. She'd catch and go right up with it. As she progressed in skill, Katie and Tim made the passes a little funkier. They'd come in high or wide. Each time, Fudd would catch the ball and bring it to what Katie calls the "set point" and launch it to the basket.
Look closely when Fudd catches the ball and you'll see her spin it in her hands as she prepares to go up. "I turn the ball so the lines are on my hands, and when I shoot it's at least somewhat of a spiral," Fudd said.
When Fudd was in late elementary school, Katie, who played at NC State and Georgetown, adjusted her daughter's shot to the one that has become one of college basketball's most fearsome. "That was a whole summer of basically giving me a 'big-girl shot,'" Fudd said.
The big shift was relocating Fudd's release point. Originally, Fudd shot the ball lower on her shoulder. The reset brought her set point up about four inches to where it is now, which locates the ball just above her shoulder. The reason for moving the set point was so Fudd could develop a true jump shot.
When Fudd got to high school, she started taking trips to South Carolina to work out with Stephen Curry's trainer, Brandon Payne. He noticed right away that she had a "good base." Her balance was strong; her feet were already aligned when she shot. But Payne wanted her to be even more aware of her arches and her toes.
"The first time I was [in South Carolina], he was talking about toes and I'm like, 'What do my toes have to do with this?'" Fudd said.
Allow Curry to explain.
"She gets pretty good lift on her jump shot compared to even me," Curry told ESPN in 2023. "I'm more kind of a toe-dominant shooter. Klay Thompson's more of a jump shooter like Azzi. But the balance is key just because you have to feel rooted into the ground to keep going to get lift, to get power."
Once the ball is in Fudd's pocket, she focuses on keeping her wrist pointed at the rim. Her elbow sticks out just a bit. With her right wrist cocked and the inside pointing toward the front of the rim, her left hand sits on the ball as a guide. Her left thumb doesn't sneak over to try to add some extra power.
When Fudd releases the ball, she does so with a natural forward flick of her wrist. She doesn't snap her wrist harshly down into a tight gooseneck. Her follow-through was designed to be soft. "The ball's sensitive; it feels that," Katie Fudd said. "So if you're real stressed and aggressive with your fingers, the ball's not going to naturally rotate."
When Fudd follows through, it's smooth.
"It's kind of like a shooter's heaven when you watch that," Curry said. "I kind of get jealous about it, because it looks prettier than mine."
But sometimes having a pretty shot isn't enough to get it to drop through the hoop.
THE FIRST MISS was a contested, leaning jumper in the lane that bounced off the backboard before glancing the rim. The second miss was a pull-up jumper that popped off the front of the rim. The third miss was a 3-point shot that bounced off the front rim and grazed the backboard before dropping into a rebounder's outstretched hands. In the Elite Eight against USC in Spokane, Washington, Fudd missed her first nine shots.
During the break before the fourth quarter, coach Geno Auriemma drew up UConn's first offensive possession. The Huskies were up 51-46, and this first play was supposed to set the tone. It was an elevator screen for Fudd. She hadn't hit a shot all game, and for just a split second, he wondered if maybe the screen should be for Paige Bueckers instead.
Fudd was a bit skeptical too. "For a second I was like, 'Why?'" she said.
But Auriemma stuck to the plan, and Fudd accepted the plan. Her teammates told her this was the one.
With the ball in Bueckers' hands, Fudd ran up the lane between Strong and Aubrey Griffin. Strong and Griffin stepped together to close the "elevator doors" and set the screen. USC's Avery Howell tried to get through as Fudd caught the ball a step behind the 3-point line. Fudd set her feet and launched the ball toward the rim. It swirled through the net to give UConn an eight-point lead.
"After having missed all of the other ones, that was a big shot by her," Auriemma said after the game. "And then another one. And so, took a hunch, and ran with it. And it was big. Really big."
The carryover effect was even bigger.
WITH A LITTLE over three minutes left in the first quarter of Sunday's championship game, South Carolina sophomore sensation MiLaysia Fulwiley dribbled the ball toward midcourt after a UConn turnover. Fudd sprinted to catch up to Fulwiley, sliding into her defensive stance and cutting her off. She reached around Fulwiley's back and poked the ball loose.
Fudd picked it up and pushed the ball toward UConn's basket. She laid it in for an easy bucket. She'd get another steal and a layup off Fulwiley in the second quarter.
Auriemma challenged Fudd to be better at defense over the summer. One of the reasons she improved is because she's leaning on a core part of her offensive prowess: her feet.
"Knowing how to use my feet and not getting outside myself definitely helps defensively," Fudd said.
On the season, Fudd averaged 1.3 steals. In the 10 games after the calendar turned to March, she averaged 2.5, including a season-high six against Arkansas State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. She also had season highs in blocks (two) and assists (seven) in that game.
"The more you do other than shoot the ball, the better success you have shooting it," Auriemma said after the win over Arkansas State. "Because when all you do is just shoot and you don't do anything else, that's always on your mind, and you are obsessed with it, and if it doesn't go your way, you make things worse.
"We're not quite ready to put 'the most all-around player in the history of UConn' next to her name just quite yet, but we're working on it. We're working on it."
WHEN SHE'S NOT on the basketball court, Fudd wears two bracelets on her wrist. One says "purpose," and the other says "resilient." Since winning the Gatorade National Player of the Year as a sophomore in high school, Fudd has suffered two ACL tears in her right knee, a meniscus strain in that same knee and an unspecified foot injury. She played in 34 of UConn's 40 games this season. In her previous three seasons, she played in 42 games total.
Prior to the stat-stuffing win over Arkansas State, it had been 728 days since Fudd last played in the NCAA tournament.
In December, she sprained her right knee against Louisville. Doubt and fear crept into her mind. "I feel like that doubt festered a little longer than it ever has before," Fudd said. "That's where it got difficult."
She missed the next three games, including a loss to Notre Dame. She returned on Dec. 21 against USC, but she went scoreless in eight minutes on the court.
"We know," Bueckers said, "nothing beats Azzi."
On Jan. 8 against Xavier, Fudd scored 23 points. She had a season-high 34 against St. John's on Feb. 12 before unleashing 28 on South Carolina in the teams' first meeting on Feb. 16. She announced after UConn advanced to the Sweet 16 that she would return for a fifth season in Storrs.
Her dominant performance on Sunday gave a preview of what next season could look like.
"She's resilient," UConn legend and New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart said. "The adversity she's gone through has only made her stronger."
STANDING ON THE ladder wearing her national championship shirt and hat, Fudd snipped the scissors through the net. She turned around, beaming as she held up her sliver.
Former UConn players crowded the court to celebrate the program's first championship since 2016. Their feet shuffled the confetti across the hardwood as they showered hugs and praise on the latest UConn champions.
"She has a heightened sense of taking advantage of the moment," Maya Moore said of Fudd. "She played with a freedom that comes with going through things and having to be patient and persistent."
Fudd played a complete game. She went just 1-for-7 on her 3-point attempts. But she found her spots -- under the hoop, in the paint and beyond the arc. She had five rebounds and three steals to go with her 24 points. She showed the versatility of her game and how much she'd developed as a basketball player, not just a shooter.
"I really don't have words to describe what today felt like and what the rest of the day is going to feel like," Fudd said. "Today was an amazing accomplishment."
ESPN's Alexa Philippou contributed to this report.