PHOENIX — UConn guard Azzi Fudd knows the WNBA draft looms as soon as her season ends. But rather than think about the possibility of being the No. 1 pick in a few weeks, she said Thursday her goal is to soak in her final days with the Huskies.

“My goal all year has been to stay present because I’ve had four years to watch the upperclassmen before me go through this and get drafted, and just how easy it is to get sucked into all the things that are coming next,” Fudd said during a media availability before UConn’s game against South Carolina in the semifinals at the Final Four.

“But at the same time, I’m like, ‘This is my last year in college, my last year with this team, my last everything with this team.’ I know how special it is to be in this program, with these people, with these coaches, so I want to take full advantage and just really appreciate everything about this year. It’s definitely gotten harder as it’s gotten closer, but I can’t look that far ahead because I know I’m going to miss these moments with my team.”

The draft is set for April 13 in New York, where Fudd is expected to take center stage. If she goes No. 1, she would give the Huskies back-to-back No. 1 picks — as the Dallas Wings picked Paige Bueckers with the top pick last year. The Wings have the No. 1 pick again, so if they pick Fudd, she and Bueckers would be teammates again.

Fudd has elevated her game in her senior year, leading the Huskies to a 38-0 record, averaging 17.5 points per game while shooting 45.5% from 3-point range. Fudd was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2025 Final Four, a performance she says gave her the confidence to have an All-American senior season.

But the work is not done, as the Huskies enter their game against South Carolina hoping to win consecutive national championships while completing an undefeated season. Fudd says while there is pressure to uphold a standard with the Huskies — who have won 54 straight games — this team does not think about the pressure.

“This whole season, it was never like, ‘Oh, we can’t lose, we can’t break the streak,'” Fudd said. “It’s just next game. How can we get better? How can we win? What can we do to just focus on the game, the present, ourselves, instead of all that outside noise, the expectation, the pressures. At the end of day, when you’re focused on those things, is when you lose, when you know you have those things get to you. I feel like leaning on each other, being focused on how we can get better, how we can win, how we can just continue to develop throughout the season has been our main priority.”

Fudd also was asked about critics who have questioned whether UConn is battle-tested enough at this stage given its Big East schedule. On selection day, there were conversations centered around whether UCLA deserved the No. 1 overall seed — the Bruins played a tougher nonconference schedule and had more Quad 1 wins than UConn.

“People love having something to talk about and also, when a team is historically so good and has so much success, there’s a lot of people rooting on their downfall at the same time,” Fudd said. “I feel like people love that narrative of they want to see the people with that much success go down. They want to see the underdogs win. I don’t know. They just like to ask those kind of questions.”