Azzi Fudd is easy to root for. It’s not just because of her silky-smooth jump shot or her tenacious defense, which make her one of the brightest stars in women’s college basketball. Or because her undefeated UConn Huskies are cemented as the number one team in the nation. Or because the 23-year-old is projected as the number one pick in April’s WNBA draft. It’s her aura that captivates you.
“Confidence to me, I would describe it as self-trust,” Fudd tells SELF after a three-hour practice in mid-January when we speak over Zoom. “I do feel like this is the most confident I’ve been on and off the floor.”
You can see the confidence. A season after winning the NCAA Championship and being named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, the guard is averaging career highs in virtually every statistical category. Off the court, her more than 1 million social media followers are captivated by her megawatt smile and breezy personality. The combination of her chronic TikTok presence and near-perfect gameplay fueled her rapid rise in popularity.
It was easy to notice when I attended last December’s matchup against the USC Trojans in Los Angeles. Thousands turned out to cheer for UConn, a school almost 3,000 miles away. Fans sporting jerseys with Fudd’s number, 35, flooded the sold-out arena. Young girls dotted the tunnel in hopes of a photo, a glimpse, or a high-five from Fudd. When the guard’s name was announced during the starting lineups, she received the loudest roar. Even the USC usher for section 119, where I sat amongst screeching UConn fans, couldn’t contain her glee when Fudd swished a three-pointer. She clapped and yelled, “Let’s go, Azzi!”.
After the game, a screaming crowd—some even matching Fudd’s signature two-cornrow gameday hairstyle—clung to bedazzled posters and waited anxiously by the UConn team bus. I mean, she is, after all, the People’s Princess (a nickname started by close friend and former teammate Paige Bueckers because the coach rarely yelled at Fudd). Now you can buy Fudd’s merch with the slogan emblazoned on it.
“It’s just surreal to think I really am living out my dreams,” she says. “And it’s all because of a sport. It’s all because I like to put a ball in a basket.”
“Her experience has been very different from mine,” Azzi’s mom, Katie Fudd, tells me. Katie played college basketball at NC State and Georgetown and was later drafted into the WNBA, but back then, schools cared only about their big-ticket men’s programs, she says. But she was so passionate about the women’s game that she named her daughter after her favorite player, ’90s Olympic legend Jennifer Azzi. “Wherever [Fudd] went, we wanted the women’s program to matter to the community, to the school, to the athletic department. And it really does here.”
Pipenco jacket and skirt. Stylist’s own tights. Louboutin shoes.
UConn is home to women’s basketball royalty. Since 1985, head coach Geno Auriemma and associate head coach Chris Dailey have dominated, becoming the winningest college coaches of all time. The Huskies have 12 National Championships (including four in a row from 2013 to 2016), 24 Final Four appearances, and 50 WNBA overall draft picks. Countless basketball stars crossed paths with UConn’s campus: Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart, and Napheesa Collier, to name a few.
Nothing this spectacular happens by accident. Greatness isn’t only pursued, it’s required. And Fudd takes the UConn legacy seriously.
“They don’t allow anything below excellence,” Fudd says. “But then also, as a unit, we don’t allow each other to give anything but our best effort. It’s the little stuff, the attention to detail….You do not cut a corner, you do not miss a line.”
The same goes for the new rule in women’s college basketball this season that players don’t have to tuck in their jerseys. But that rule doesn’t apply to UConn, she says. If Coach Dailey caught them with an untucked jersey, she’d look them up and down à la Miranda Priestly. That’s not how this program gets down.
“I find myself looking at other teams with their uniforms untucked: sloppy. The way their socks are different colors: sloppy. The way they warm up: sloppy, disorganized,” Fudd says like she’s a judge on America’s Next Top Model. “This program of excellence that the coaching staff has been able to build is incredible…. Those are things I want to take with me when I’m part of a new program. Making sure I’m on time, I have my routine, and I’m being presentable. Someone the coaching staff at UConn will be proud of.”
Gol Shaah Suit. Sanderlak shirt. Louboutin shoes.
For Fudd, it’s surreal to be mentioned in the same sentence as four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry. The two met at Curry’s camp for high school basketball players after her freshman year in high school, and he has been a mentor to her since. All the hours in the gym perfecting her lightning-quick shooting form and tightening her handles led to this moment, but she recognizes it took a little bit of luck too.
“I could have been born in any time frame, in any era,” she says. “What are the odds I’m here, alive now, playing basketball when women’s sports—women’s basketball, especially—is on the rise and on a trajectory like never seen before?”
In 2024, for the first time ever, viewership for the women’s March Madness tournament surpassed the men’s. Over 8.5 million people watched Fudd and UConn win the National Championship in 2025, making it ESPN’s third-most-watched title game ever. The WNBA shattered attendance records in 2025, and in 2024 the league’s merch sales grew by 600% from 2023. The 2026 WNBA draft class—Fudd included—is primed to keep the momentum going. It’s jam-packed with talent, notoriety, and budding superstars like Fudd.
This year, the Dallas Wings will own the rights to the number one draft pick for the second year in a row. In 2025, they selected Bueckers, Fudd’s UConn teammate of four years. Bueckers went on to earn the Rookie of the Year award (the seventh UConn player to do so), set the rookie single-game scoring record, and receive an All-Star nod in her first season, despite their last-place finish. If the two were to team up again, fans may endure heart palpitations from excitement. The name blend “Pazzi” has become a hopeful synonym for the future of the Wings organization, with aspirations to jolt them from the previous season’s losing record of 10-34.
But Fudd isn’t quite there yet; she wants to focus on the present. Partly to avoid getting her hopes up, and partly to enjoy this one last college ride. As a super-senior, she hasn’t grown tired of the constant shuffling from the training room to her MBA classes, the movie nights with her roommates, or the spontaneous apple-picking trips she drags her teammates on. When she does allow her mind to drift to her next chapter, though, she gets chills thinking about her draft night.
“To be drafted would be a dream come true,” Fudd says, smiling. Just like that, she’s a kid again, imagining herself there, flanked by her parents, coaches, and friends who’ve all played a part in the journey. The WNBA Draft is now a full glitz and glam affair, with draftees rocking runway-level looks and hours of live, on-location TV coverage. Last year, Fudd attended the draft as a guest of Bueckers, but this time the spotlight will be shining on her.
I was curious about what her elevator pitch is to general managers who are scouting her. She holds up her palm and starts counting off her fingers. “If you draft me, you get a really good shooter. You’re gonna get someone who can score at all three levels. You’re gonna get a really great defender. I’m taking pride in that…. But most importantly, you’re gonna get someone who…” she pauses, aghast. “Ew, I don’t like talking about myself!”
Her teammate, Kamorea “KK” Arnold, will brag for her then. “The proof is in the pudding, honestly,” Arnold tells me via video chat before a January practice. “Azzi is an all-around player, a great player. She gets it on both ends of the floor. She’s just the type of player that you want in your program, whether that’s off or on the court…. She puts in the work.”
In her final months in college, Fudd has begun to understand the magnitude of this moment—how she’s standing on the shoulders of giants, women from previous generations who laid the groundwork. It’s clicking that she’s the focal point of the next generation of ballers, and she embraces it.
“My favorite thing is when girls write notes…. I’ve gotten some really deep ones where it’s like, ‘You’ve helped me. I tore my ACL, and I was depressed. I didn’t think I could play again, and watching you has helped me find that passion, that joy again,’” Fudd says. As a freshman, she missed 11 games with a foot injury. As a sophomore, knee injuries sidelined her for 22 games. Then she suffered a season-ending ACL injury in her junior year. In her first three seasons at UConn, Fudd played in only 42 out of 112 games. (Finally, in her fifth year, Fudd has been one hundred percent healthy and hasn’t missed a game.)
Many letters have brought her to tears, and she’s made it a priority to respond to every single one before she graduates. “They say that I’ve meant a lot to them, but getting those notes means a lot, to know that you have that kind of power to impact someone’s life,” she says. “To know that my journey, my injuries, are helping someone else find their confidence and see that light again.”
Jane Wade shirt, jacket, and corset. Aknvas skirt and shoes. Jennifer Fisher earrings.
It was a sunny September day in 2025 when Fudd stood in Times Square surrounded by the full-throttle buzz of New York City. This stretch of Broadway is where megastars come to see their faces on a jumbo screen and their names in the brightest lights. That day it was Fudd on an LED billboard for Paula’s Choice. As videos of her skin care routine played above the neon-lit street, she sprayed Champagne like a first-place F1 driver on the podium. “A true ‘pinch-me’ moment,” she wrote on Instagram.
It wasn’t just a sponsorship: It was a signal that Fudd was emerging as more than a standout basketball player. The celebritizing of college athletes isn’t a new fad, but the ability to monetize it is. Fudd was part of the very first class of athletes who could cash in on their name, image, and likeness beginning in 2021. Since then, the NIL economy has grown into a $1 billion business. Some women athletes command upwards of seven figures and have ushered in a new era of college stars.
Fudd was the first college player to sign a multifaceted NIL contract with Curry’s brand, Thirty Ink, and she accompanied him to run the CurryCon portion of his first-ever basketball camp in China. Her laundry list of other brand deals includes names like Madison Reed, Marriott Bonvoy, Cash App, and Celsius. She even hosts her own iHeart Media podcast, Fudd Around and Find Out. Just this month, she became a member of the Jordan Brand family and is also featured in Geico’s new docuseries, Miles That Matter, as part of a just-announced partnership with the insurance provider.
“This is nothing we imagined,” Katie Fudd says. “It’s a great bonus, but we’re making sure she’s aligning herself with the companies that fit for her, that work with her, that are authentic for her. That’s the most important stuff. It’s not about, ‘Let’s make a quick buck.’ It’s really about, ‘Okay, let’s do it right.’”
One thing Fudd has gotten right is the power of relatability. Fudd’s faithful following already knows that she keeps wet wipes in her gym bag for her pre-game poops, or how she’s a fan of cottage cheese despite the haters. She grooves to the latest 15-second TikTok dance trends that flood the For You Page, except hers gets millions of views. She, too, has dozens of mystery novels stacked high in her apartment for when she wants to get lost in a twisty plot. (“When my teammates say they don’t like reading, I say, ‘You need to grow up!’”)
Ferrari jacket. Kate Barton dress. Gianvito Rossi shoes.
Once a quiet kid growing up in Arlington, Virginia, clouded by imposter syndrome, Fudd felt she didn’t allow herself to live to the fullest. “One of my biggest regrets in high school was that I didn’t do much,” she said. Being the top-rated recruit in the nation at Washington, DC’s St. John’s College High School kept her busy. Plus, she got her driver’s license late and was too sheepish to ask her parents to shuttle her to football games or other events to get the most out of the clichéd high school experience. “I didn’t want to bother people, burden people. I didn’t really make a lot of friends. I feel like I could have, [but] I was nervous, I was shy. I was too embarrassed to go meet new people.”
Cut to the present day, Fudd doesn’t want self-consciousness to hold her back anymore. “Any form of embarrassing, embarrassed, embarrassment, and insecure—those words, out of my vocab,” she says. Other people’s opinions, or slipping up and saying the wrong thing? She shrugs it off. “Life’s too short to be worried about that kind of stuff.”
Recently, it’s been fashion that’s pushed her to be more bold. She’s attended the past two New York Fashion Weeks, stepping out in main-grid-worthy looks and accessorizing with sass. An Alice + Olivia glitzy denim miniskirt here, a KidSuper floral pantsuit there, with each outfit paired with custom acrylics. Her typical baggy matching-set-crop-top combo was sidelined.
Stylist Sydnee Paige—whose credits include actress Kerry Washington, WNBA player Skylar Diggins, and comedian Ziwe—has been working with Fudd since last September and can already attest to her blooming self-assurance. “At that first fitting, she was quiet and shy, very to herself. Now she’s vibrant in our fittings,” Paige tells SELF. “She’ll try on clothes now and won’t even look in the mirror. I’ll hand her an outfit, she’ll throw it on and go straight to set. That says so much about her confidence in herself.” Fudd knows who she is and wants to be her best self on and off the court.
Fudd is learning to trust herself. Just like she trusts her repetition and mental checklist before swishing a three-pointer (set feet, square shoulders, extend the arm, hold the follow-through), she’s letting go of the instinct to be a people pleaser and instead is listening to her gut. And she trusts that staying authentic to herself will get her exactly where she’s destined to go next.
Photographer: César Buitrago
Stylist: Dione Davis
Hair: Andrita Renee
Makeup: Linda Gradin
Manicurist: Jaqueline Pham
Production: Boom Productions
Writer: Jordan Robinson
