As Azzi Fudd checked out at the end of the first half, Geno Auriemma stopped her, took a look at her hands and then made a face. Apparently, the coach had given her a suggestion on Sunday and was just following up to see how it worked out.

“He told me that I needed to cut my nails,” Fudd explained. “He took my hand the other day and was like, ‘You need to trim them, they're too long.’”

In UConn’s NCAA Tournament opener against UTSA, the graduate guard shot 1-5 from three and finished with seven points — only the third time all season she’d been held to single-digits. Auriemma blamed her nails, not because they were changing the trajectory of her shot as she released it, but due to their mistreatment of the ball.

“He was like, ‘Do you feel the ball coming off your nails?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, a little.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you're hurting the ball. That’s why you’re not making any shots. File your nails down and be nicer to the ball and it’ll be nicer to you,’” Fudd relayed.

“You should trim them a little bit because it'll make the ball happy, the ball will like you, and you'll make more shots,” is how Auriemma put it himself.

Fudd was naturally a bit skeptical.

“She and Ice (Brady) looked at me like I was an idiot. I walked away and said, ‘Look, I don’t believe it either but it’s worth trying,’” Auriemma said.

Ultimately, she acquiesced and gave it a shot. Lo and beyond, the ball took a liking to Fudd and started going in — a lot. In her final game at Gampel Pavilion, Fudd knocked in eight 3-pointers en route to a 34-point explosion — both of which matched previous career-highs.

“I guess it worked,” Fudd laughed.