Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd dismissed any questions about their relationship early in the season, but they provided an important update together.
When Fudd was drafted first overall earlier this year to Bueckers’ Dallas Wings, it was believed that the two former UConn Huskies were still dating, and whenever either were asked, it was quickly shut down by either them or Wings PR.
But the duo confirmed on “Fudd Around and Find Out” that they were actually long broken up, even before Fudd was drafted.
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“We’re not together anymore. It’s been, for everybody wondering — even though we don’t have to share — it’s been a while. Like, over a year. And [we wanted] to share that, because everybody seemed to be like, ‘Oh my god, they’re teammates, how is this going to work?’ We were not together before she got drafted, so all of those narratives can go to bed,” Bueckers said on the show.
“She was not drafted because she was my girlfriend, she was drafted because she deserved it. She’s an amazing human, amazing basketball player. And we’re still friends, still cool. We broke up over a year ago, so we played an entire season together. We’re the utmost professional, we care about basketball, and we’re still friends, we’re still cool.”
“We know you guys are curious and probably have a ton of questions, but we’ve addressed everything that we need to, and the rest will stay with us,” Fudd said.
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“Sometimes in life there’s just seasons. And sometimes in life, two people are just at different points of their life,” Bueckers continued. “We still support each other, we’re still going to be great teammates, we’re going to be professionals.”
Players in the WNBA have dated each other as both teammates and opponents. Notably, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley got married while playing with the Chicago Sky.
They were UConn teammates from 2021 up until April last year when Bueckers was the first overall pick in the WNBA Draft, but they were reunited earlier this year.
The duo played in two national championship games together, winning last year’s — Bueckers joined the school one year prior to Fudd.
The Wings went 27-17 but were a first-round exit to the eventual champion Golden State Valkyries.