Azzi Fudd exits early as No. 3 UConn women’s basketball suffers first loss of the season, 74-60 at No. 7 Notre Dame

The UConn women’s basketball team finally met its match.

The No. 3 Huskies (6-1) entered Sunday’s matchup against No. 7 Notre Dame (7-1) with an undefeated record, including three wins over top-10 teams. They had hoped to extend that to four, but were bested in their first true road game of the season, dropping a 74-60 result to the Fighting Irish in the Jimmy V Women’s Classic Sunday at Purcell Pavilion.

“You have to take it like it’s a long season and you don’t win national championships or lose national championships December 4,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said postgame. “But you do get to find out what it is that can help you down the road win one or what can prevent you from winning one down the road. So winning the game would have been great this afternoon, it would have been an awesome win here against a really, really good team. But the next best thing to winning the game was we kind of got a glimpse of like what could happen if we don’t make up for whatever it is missing.”

Graduate forward Dorka Juhász was out for the fifth consecutive game with a broken left thumb. Her absence finally caught up to the Huskies as they struggled inside throughout the afternoon. They were outscored 46-16 in the paint, shot a mere 33.3% inside the arc and were out-rebounded 39-26.

As if the injury to Juhász wasn’t enough on top of season-ending injuries to Paige Bueckers and Ice Brady, as well as Caroline Ducharme working her way back from neck stiffness, star guard Azzi Fudd sat out the entire second half of Sunday’s game with an injury.

“I mean, we’ve been dealing with people out the whole season, so nothing really should have changed for us,” Aaliyah Edwards said. “But we did miss Azzi for sure.”

Fudd went down late the first quarter after a collision with teammate Edwards, in which Edwards fell on her knee. She went back to the locker room and wasn’t on the bench to start the second. Fudd returned to the game with under seven minutes remaining in the first half, at which point UConn trailed by nine points, but she was done after the halftime break.

“I think she’ll be alright,” Auriemma said of Fudd. “It was just one of those things that things happen and your own man falls on top of you. So she tried to go again, but obviously it didn’t look like she could move. So rather than rather than take any chances, I figured we’d take some precautions instead.”

This was UConn’s first loss to Notre Dame since the 2019 Final Four and first in South Bend since 2013. The 14-point margin also marked the Huskies’ largest loss in the rivalry with the Fighting Irish since 2004, according to ESPN Stats and Info.

The Huskies struggled on offense throughout the afternoon, shooting just 36.8% from the floor. The defense wasn’t much better, allowing the Fighting Irish to 56.1% from the floor and 46.2% from deep. Olivia Miles went off for 21 points, eight rebounds and four assists, one of five Notre Dame players in double figures.

Lou Lopez Sénéchal led UConn with 21 points. Edwards had 14 points and five rebounds and Nika Mühl finished with 11 points, six rebounds and five assists.

In complete opposite fashion of its last game where it was red hot to start, UConn couldn’t get much anything going on offense at the beginning of this one. The Huskies missed 10 of their first 12 shots, going just 16.7% from the field to start the afternoon.

It was the second quarter where things really got out of hand, though. UConn went on multiple scoring droughts and was outscored 23-11 in the period. The defense fell apart down the stretch, allowing Notre Dame to make six of its last eight shots of the half, including three 3-pointers — two of which came from forward Maddy Westbeld being left wide-open.

The Huskies trailed 41-24 at halftime. They shot just 27.5% from the floor while allowing the Fighting Irish to shoot 65.4% in the first half.

“We just didn’t have enough scorers on the floor and enough people playing at a real high level to get enough buckets when we needed them,” Auriemma said. “Notre Dame played really inspired. ... We just weren’t able to keep up with them scoring wise.”

Notre Dame led by as many as 18 points early in the third quarter, but UConn managed to make things competitive as the period went on, going on a 10-0 run across 2:16 to get within seven. With under four minutes left in the third, UConn trimmed the deficit to five points after Miles was called for an intentional foul that sent Lopez Sénéchal to the line.

But then the Huskies ran out of steam to allow the Fighting Irish to storm back and take control. Notre Dame outscored UConn 25-16 over the last 14 minutes of the game.

UConn is back at Gampel Pavilion for a game against Princeton, coached by former Husky Carla Berube, Thursday at 7 p.m. Auriemma said “he’s guessing” Fudd will be available for that contest, while Juhász’s return was more up in the air.

“We’ll see,” Auriemma said regarding Juhász. “She practiced a little bit yesterday, a little more yesterday and she went through shootaround today a little bit better. So we’ll see Tuesday and Wednesday how practice goes and then we’ll make that decision.”