The preseason awards are rolling in.
It’s officially preseason awards season. On Monday, UConn’s Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd were named to the Naismith Trophy Watch List, joining 48 other players from around the country.
Bueckers is the only one who’s won the award previously. As a freshman in 2020-21, she won every national player of the year trophy possible while also being named a consensus All-American. The superstar is coming off her first healthy season since then, where she averaged 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.2 steals and 1.4 blocks while leading the injury-ravaged Huskies to the Final Four. Bueckers earned AP, Naismith, WBCA, Wooden and USBWA First Team All-American honors.
She was recently named an unanimous AP Preseason All-American and Big East Preseason Player of the Year.
Meanwhile, Fudd made the watch list despite missing nearly all of last season with a torn ACL. After starting the first two games, she went down with the injury in practice on Nov. 14. Although she’s been hurt much of her collegiate career, Fudd certainly has the potential to be a national player of the year candidate.
In the first six games of her sophomore campaign — when Bueckers herself was out with a torn ACL — Fudd averaged 24.0 points on 63.2 percent shooting and hit 43.5 percent from three. While she’ll miss the start of the 2024-25 season, she’s expected to return sometime in the first month.
A UConn player has won the Naismith Trophy on 11 occasions: Rebecca Lobo (1995), Sue Bird (2002), Diana Taurasi (2003-04), Maya Moore (2009, ‘11), Tina Charles (2010), Breanna Stewart (2014-16) and Bueckers (2021).
In addition to the Naismith Trophy, Bueckers also landed on the watch list for the Nancy Lieberman Award, which goes to the best point guard in the nation each year. Bueckers brought it home as a freshman in 2020-21 but was a finalist for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award this past season, which is given to the top shooting guard in the country.
She is one of 20 players on the watch list. Other notables include Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles, South Carolina’s Raven Johnson and Te-Hina Paopao, as well as USC’s Talia von Oelhoffen.