[ad_1]
UConn sophomore Azzi Fudd is expected to miss three to six weeks with a right knee injury she suffered in the first quarter of the Huskies’ loss to Notre Dame on Sunday.
The news, released Tuesday by UConn, felt like a nightmarish bout of déjà vu to Huskies enthusiasts who have watched UConn get decimated by injuries over the past 12 months, and have now witnessed serious knee injuries to Paige Bueckers and Fudd almost a year apart against the same team. Once again, Bueckers, the 2020-21 national player of the year, and Fudd, whose scoring outbursts against multiple top-10 teams this season put her name into the early conversation for the 2022-23 award, will share the bench together just as they did for 11 games last year when both were out (knee and foot injuries, respectively).
Fudd’s prognosis, at least, indicates she is expected to return this season, while we won’t see Bueckers (ACL tear) until 2023-24.
The UConn injury bug has impacted multiple players: Freshman Ice Brady is out for the season after suffering a dislocated patella. Graduate student Dorka Juhász broke her thumb in a win over Texas on Nov. 14 and has missed the past five games.
Fudd — who suffered a torn right MCL and ACL in April 2019, and struggled with a foot issue that prevented her from being fully healthy as a freshman — could return as early as later this month or as late as Jan. 17, depending on the three- to six-week scale.
ESPN.com’s Alexa Philippou, M.A. Voepel and Charlie Creme discuss how Fudd’s injury could impact the trajectory of the Huskies’ season after their encouraging start, as well as the Big East and national title races.
How does Fudd’s absence impact the Huskies? How does the lineup change?
The basketball world had just started to see what Fudd, a potentially generational talent, could be. That show isn’t over for the season, but it’ll be stuck on pause for the next 3-6 weeks.
UConn’s already thin backcourt just got thinner. The Huskies are down to four healthy…
[ad_2]
