She once helped an Arlington youth team win a national flag-football championship. And now, Azzi Fudd has a college-level national basketball championship to her credit.
Last Sunday (April 6), the Arlington resident scored 24 points and grabbed five rebounds to help the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team win the Division I NCAA national championship with an 82-59 victory over the University of South Carolina in the 2025 title game.
The 5-foot-11 guard, a graduate student, tied for team-high scoring totals with those 24 points in that title contest, earning the Most Outstanding Player of the Game award.
“We knew we were going to have to be ready for a battle,” Fudd told ARLnow of the national-championship game. “We were so focused and locked in, and we knew our assignments. That was one of our best games. Our team chemistry was really great the last few weeks of the season.”
For the season, Fudd finished as the team’s third leading scorer, averaging 13.6 points per game. She made 79 three-pointers, had 61 assists and 46 steals.
For her performance, Fudd was rewarded as a first-team All-Big East Conference selection.
She has scored 982 career points in college, and plans to return to Connecticut for one more season.
The 2024-25 campaign was especially satisfying for Fudd, because she suffered a knee injury the preceding season and played in only two games.
“The mental mindset was the hardest part, because I was so used to working out all the time and training and playing,” Fudd said about the months-long physical recovery process from the injury.
When Fudd was growing up in Arlington, she played in the Arlington Travel Basketball league on girls and boys teams. She was so dominant in the girls league, Fudd eventually played on boys teams, longtime ATB coach Jim Sedor said.
Also as an Arlington youth athlete, Fudd was a key member of a girls age 14-under NFL Flag Football team representing Arlington County Parks and Recreation that won a national championship at the Walt Disney World Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando.
“Winning that national flag championship was so much fun,” Fudd said.
Mike Rivera was Fudd’s coach on that flag team.
“I think she was the best flag football player in the country at that time, because she could do everything,” Rivera told ARLnow. “As a basketball player, I don’t think people realize the amount of work she has put in to get that good and earn what she has. Azzi has overcome injuries and a lot of things.”
In addition to her NCAA basketball and NFL Flag football national titles, Fudd played on different age-group teams for USA Basketball that won national championships.
Fudd played high-school basketball as a standout at St. John’s College High School in D.C., where she was a three-time Gatorade Washington, D.C. Player of the Year.
Fudd is the daughter of Katie Smrcka-Duffy Fudd, who was a standout high-school basketball player in Northern Virginia, then in college for the North Carolina State and Georgetown university teams.
Fudd’s father, Tim, was a standout basketball player at Chantilly High School, then played in college at American University.
At Connecticut, Fudd’s uniform number is 35, the same as her mother wore in high school when she played for the Madison Warhawks in Vienna. Her father, Tim, also wore No. 35 for one season when he played internationally.
Fudd’s younger brother, Jose Fudd, was a freshman guard on the University of Mary Washington’s men’s basketball team this past season, also sporting uniform No. 35. He played in 29 games and scored 87 points.
Jose Fudd played high-school basketball — first at Wakefield High School in Arlington, then at Marshall in Falls Church.
