UConn’s senior day ceremony on Sunday wasn’t exactly normal. The Huskies didn’t honor a single player who had gone through a standard, four-year career with the program. The only true senior involved was Serah Williams, who transferred in from Wisconsin over the summer.

As for the homegrown players, Azzi Fudd walked on senior day for the second straight year. Caroline Ducharme participated as a redshirt senior. Ice Brady and Ayanna Patterson, both academic seniors, asked to take part despite each having two seasons of eligibility left beyond the current campaign.

It proved to be a group that, collectively and individually, dealt with plenty of adversity throughout their time in Storrs.

“I don't know that any group of players can look back and say anybody's had it harder,” Geno Auriemma said afterwards.

Together, they’ve played in just 313 of a possible 642 games (48.0 percent) during their careers. All of them missed at least one season with an injury.

Fudd sat out a significant chunk of the 2022-23 campaign with a pair of knee injuries, then went down two games into the following year with a torn ACL. Ducharme dealt with debilitating concussions from her freshman season onward. She appeared in 54 games during her first two years but has made it into just 29 contests in the three years since.

Patterson played in 30 games as a freshman, then missed two consecutive campaigns with knee tendinitis and a shoulder injury, respectively. Ice Brady dislocated her patella before playing in a single game with the Huskies, suited up the last two seasons, then made it through just two games this year before knee issues flared up again.

Even senior day itself ended up being impacted by injuries. Brady made her way out to center court on crutches after undergoing knee surgery last Monday. Patterson started for the first time in her career but only totaled two minutes after falling on her hip in practice earlier this week.

Despite all that, three of UConn’s four homegrown seniors were still on the court for Sunday’s win over Providence. They all scored, too. Patterson had the opening points on a free throw, Fudd tied Sarah Strong for the team-high with 13 while Ducharme converted on her fifth attempt after an 0-4 start.

After all they’ve been through, none of them ever gave up. Auriemma chose to view their stories not as tragedies, but as shining examples of perseverance.

“It would have been easy to just give up on it, give up on trying to finish it, trying to still get something out of it,” Auriemma said. “Sometimes when you have a lot and you lose it… then it happens again and again. I can't imagine being in that situation and keep fighting back. So hopefully that helps them going forward, whether it's in basketball or in their life after they leave here. But certainly it's been a journey, and certainly it's been and an epic adventure for some of them.”

They aren’t done yet, either. After winning the program’s 12th national championship in 2025, the seniors will try to go out with back-to-back titles.

Beyond that isn’t quite as clear, though.

For Fudd, she’ll be taken high in the 2026 WNBA Draft, perhaps even No. 1, and will begin her professional career. That’s pretty straightforward.

Meanwhile, Ducharme is out of eligibility, so something else has to be next. She just doesn’t know what that is yet. When asked if she’d thought about what she’ll do after leaving UConn, Ducharme answered with a flat no. She eventually explained that after all she’s been through, she finds it difficult to plan ahead.

“Throughout my career, there's been so many ups and downs that what I thought was going to be my future has obviously changed,” Ducharme said. “Things are unexpected. So I don't want to necessarily say, ‘This is going to happen,’ because I've learned that you just have to take it as it comes and see what happens.”

With Patterson and Brady, both still have eligibility remaining.

Patterson indicated that she plans to continue playing basketball. In her first season back, the redshirt sophomore has been buried on the depth chart. She’s only averaged 5.5 minutes per game, nearly all of which have been long after the outcome has been decided. With Sarah Strong, Blanca Quiñonez, Jana El Alfy and Olivia Vukosa projected to fill out the frontcourt next year, minutes could be even harder to come by.

Despite that, if it was up to her, Patterson would remain at UConn.

“I’ve loved my team here at UConn and I’ve loved playing with this group of guys,” she said. “That locker room means everything to me. That coaching staff and the players in the locker room, I mean, that’s family. Those are my sisters. I would love to be back in that locker room with them.”

Brady’s situation is more complicated. She missed all but two games this season and, according to Auriemma, may remain out for a while longer.

“That knee's just been bothering her for so long and it just kept holding her back,” the coach explained. “Hopefully, this is it, this is the last of it. But when people open up your knee again, it's complicated… This is going to be a long rehab for her. Really long.”

But those are all questions to be sorted out later. For now, Auriemma hopes they look back on their time in Storrs fondly, even if it didn’t go according to plan.

“There are different journeys for every kid that goes through college,” he said. “At the end, you may have gotten what you wanted, you may not have gotten what you wanted. But you certainly got a lot. It's life-changing for you, for your teammates, for everyone. It can't all be about what happened on the court. There's so much more to your college career.”