No. 7 Notre Dame upsets No. 3 UConn after Azzi Fudd leaves with knee injury

The Huskies dropped their first game of the season on Sunday afternoon in a loss that may prove to be costly.

No. 7 Notre Dame rolled past No. 3 UConn 74-60 at Purcell Pavilion in the Jimmy V’s Women’s Classic, marking a great win following the Irish’s two-point upset loss to No. 20 Maryland earlier this week.

UConn lost star guard Azzi Fudd in the opening minutes, too. Fudd went down after teammate Aaliyah Edwards fell into her right leg on a screen. She went to the bench and later to the locker room to have it looked at before eventually returning to the game in the second quarter. Fudd, though, didn’t play at all in the second half. The sophomore was averaging 24 points per game headed into Sunday, and would be a huge loss for UConn if she is out for a significant amount of time.

Notre Dame was in a tight battle with UConn in the opening minutes before it closed the first quarter on a 9-0 run to take its first significant lead of the afternoon. From there, the Irish never looked back. They cruised to a 41-24 lead at halftime after holding the Huskies to just 11 points in the second quarter and then held UConn to just two field goals in the final three and a half minutes to pick up the 14-point win.

Lou Lopez-Senechal led UConn with 21 points while shooting 7-of-17 from the field, and Edwards added 14 points in the loss. The Huskies shot just 36.8% from the field as a team, and were out-rebounded by 13.

Olivia Miles led Notre Dame with 21 points and eight rebounds in the win. Maddy Westbeld added 17 points and nine rebounds, and center Lauren Ebo put up 12 points from the bench. The Irish shot better than 56% from the field as a team, too.