Azzi Fudd Ruled Out for Rest of Season, Breanna Stewart Makes WNBA History

Azzi Fudd

On Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas Wings announced Azzi Fudd will miss the remainder of the 2026 season after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on her right knee. The WNBA’s 2026 first overall pick had already missed the previous five games before the team confirmed the news.  

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the former Husky star will miss a significant amount of time due to an injury. She tore her ACL and MCL in high school while competing in a 3-on-3 tournament in 2019. During her five-year UConn career, Fudd missed 76 games, including tearing her ACL again in her right knee during a November 2023 Husky practice. 

The rookie will finish her 2026 campaign averaging 13.1 points per game while shooting 45.6 percent from the field and 39.7 percent from three-point range in 30 games played (24 starts). She also averaged 1.7 steals over 30 games, quickly emerging as one of the league’s top perimeter defenders. She is currently ranked first among rookies in three-pointers made (62), steals (52), tied for first in three-point field goal percentage (39.7), 3rd in blocks per game (0.8), fourth in points per game (13.1) and total points scored (393).

The Wings are 19-11 when Fudd is in the lineup, compared to just 1-5 without her this season. The team entered the WNBA All-Star break in fourth place but has gone 2-7 in the nine games since, dropping to the eighth seed. Fudd has missed five of those nine games.

Paige Bueckers at Golden State Huskies 

One of those Wings losses came on Monday night in the Bay Area after the Golden State Valkyries defeated Dallas 78-70 and clinched a playoff berth for the second consecutive season. The Valkyries, who are just in their second season in franchise history, are competing with the Minnesota Lynx for the top spot in the WNBA (more on that later in the article!)

Gabby Williams scored 23 points behind three triples. It’s the sixth 20+ point game of the season for Williams, first since June 24th against the Atlanta Dream. Bueckers netted 21 points but committed a career-high seven turnovers. Tiffany Hayes (10 points and one steal), Kaitlyn Chen (two points, one assist) and Kiah Stokes (five rebounds and one block) rounded out the Golden State “Huskies.” Christyn Williams, who signed a developmental deal with the Wings last week, was not active.

The Wings led for most of the first quarter as Bueckers knocked in her first bucket of the game on a stepback jumper for an early 9-3 Dallas lead. Chen found a cutting Hayes for a layup to trim the deficit to 15-12 with just under three minutes left in the frame. Golden State didn’t take their first lead of the game until the waning seconds of the quarter when Hayes brought the house down:

The three-pointer pushed the Valkyries out in front 20-19.

The game remained within one possession for nearly the first five minutes of the second quarter. until Williams ignited a Golden State run. The 2016 AAC Sixth Player of the Year connected on a jumper to give her team a 28-25 lead with 5:29 left in the first half. That basket started an 18-3 run to close out the quarter, including Williams finding both Cecil Zandalasni and Veronica Burton for a pair of triples. Then she connected on her own jumper over Bueckers as the Valkyries took a 44-28 lead at the break.

Bueckers accounted for the first five points of the second half after an assist to an Alysha Clark three-pointer, followed by her own layup after a nifty behind the back move to get to the hoop, pulling Dallas within 11 at 44-33. Bueckers was able to cut the lead to nine after drilling a three-pointer with 4:04 left in the third quarter. However, the home team was able to respond as Williams converted another jumper and Hayes was able to get downhill and make a layup for a 59-46 Valkyries lead with under two minutes left in the quarter.

Golden State kept that momentum going at the start of the fourth quarter as Hayes found Janelle Salaun for a layup that gave the Valkyries its largest lead of the game, 66-46. A few minutes later, Bueckers did turn it back on as she buried four of her five shots from the field, plus two free throws in the final three and a half minutes of the game. She pulled the Wings within six points, but it wasn't enough to catch Golden State.

Golden State improved to 25-9, including 15-4 at home. The Wings dropped to 20-16, 10-10 on the road.

Naphessa Collier/Dorka Juhasz at Golden State Huskies

In a matchup of the two best records in the WNBA, the Minnesota Lynx protected their top spot in the league with a statement win over the Golden State Valkyries 77-66 on Wednesday night in San Francisco. The win extended the Lynx’s lead to four games for the WNBA’s best record and made them the first team to reach 30 wins this season.

Naphessa Collier led all Husky scorers with 18 points and eight rebounds. Tiffany Hayes (12 points, seven rebounds, two assists), Gabby Williams (10 points on 4-of-15 shooting, including only 1-of-7 from three), Kiah Stokes (two points, 6 rebounds) and both Dorka Juhasz and Kaitlyn Chen were held scoreless.

With under four minutes left in the first quarter, Collier scored four straight points to put the Lynx ahead 16-9, including a turnaround jumper over her former Husky teammate, Gabby Williams. However, a few minutes later, Williams got a little revenge on Collier:

Midway through the second quarter, Collier nailed a tough fadeaway jumper to give the Lynx a 17-point lead, its largest of the first half, 35-18. Hayes scored the last six Valkyrie points of the quarter, but the Golden State still found themselves down 41-26 at halftime.

The Lynx led by as many as 22 points in the third quarter, but Golden State went on a fourth-quarter run. Hayes drove past two Lynx defenders for a layup to bring the score to 56-49 for Minnesota. Williams made a contested layup and drew the foul before converting the free throw to cut the deficit to nine with 5:24 remaining. But Collier was able to help Minnesota put Golden State away by scoring six points in the final four and a half minutes of the game.

Minnesota (30-7) extends its win streak to five, while the Valkyries’ (25-10) six-game winning streak has been snapped.

Breanna Stewart at Azura Stevens

For the first time in three tries this season, the Chicago Sky came out victorious against the New York Liberty. Azura Stevens scored 12 points with seven rebounds and one block, while Breanna Stewart netted a team-high 22 points with seven rebounds, three steals and one block in Chicago’s 93-86 victory.

Midway through the first quarter, Stevens and Stewart were trading leads with another as the Azura connected on a layup for a 13-12 Sky lead. Over a minute later, Stewart ran the floor in transition and made an easy layup to give the Liberty a 14-13 advantage. On the very next Sky possession, former South Carolina star Kamilla Cardoso found Stevens cutting to the basket, where she converted the layup and was fouled. She would make the free throw to extend the Sky lead to two, 16-14.

The Sky outscored the Liberty 30-19 to take a 54-43 halftime lead. Stevens scored the first Husky basket of the second half, hitting a layup to push the Sky’s lead back to double-digits at 61-51. A minute later, Stewart threw a cross-court pass in transition for a Rebecca Allen three-pointer, as the Liberty cut their deficit to five, 61-56.

In the final minute of the period, Stewart drove the baseline and knocked in a floater for her 3,000th career point with the New York Liberty. She became the fastest player in New York Liberty franchise history to accomplish the feat (145 games). According to @ESPNInsights/X, she also made WNBA history as the first player to score 3,000 points for multiple franchises.

Moving onto the fourth quarter as Stewart once again dished it to Allen, this time for a layup to trim their margin to 74-72 with 7:14 to play. Later, Stewart sank a three-pointer to bring the Liberty gap down to just one-point, 79-78. Thirty seconds later, Stewart made a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to one again. However, the Sky scored 12 of the final 18 points to close out the seven-point victory.

The Sky improved to 14-22 on the season. Meanwhile, the Liberty’s two-game win streak was snapped and are now 22-15 on the year.

Olivia Nelson-Ododa/Aaliyah Edwards

Olivia Nelson-Ododa backed up her career-high 21-point performance last week with another strong performance in the Connecticut Sun’s 85-77 victory inside the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts on Tuesday night.

The fifth-year veteran recorded her second consecutive double-double and fifth of the season, scoring a team-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including a perfect 4-of-4 from the free-throw line, while also grabbing 11 rebounds.

Aaliyah Edwards was out of the lineup for the second straight game and sixth time over the last eight games overall. It has been an up-and-down couple of weeks for Edwards, who missed four games from July 22nd to August 2nd with a right knee injury. She returned for two games, scoring 14 and 15 points, respectively in those two contests, but has since missed the last two games with a left ankle injury. It is unclear the severity of Edwards’ current left ankle injury.

Kia Nurse

Kia Nurse has found her stroke from behind the arc lately. The 2015 AAC Freshman of the Year is shooting 8-of-17 (47.1%) from 3-point range over her last three games. She went 4-of-8 against the Wings last week before knocking down two 3-pointers on consecutive days this week against the Fever and Mystics. Nurse scored eight points against the Fever and nine against the Mystics, but the Tempo lost both games and have now dropped 12 straight. 

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