STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford senior forward Alanna Smith is one of 30 NCAA women's basketball student-athletes selected as a candidate for the 2019 Senior CLASS Award.
To be eligible for the award, student-athletes must be classified as NCAA Division I seniors and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition. An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their athletic platforms to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
The candidates will be narrowed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character and competition. The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2019 NCAA Women's Final Four this spring.
A 2017-18 All-Pac-12 pick, this season Smith is shooting nearly 60 percent from the field (41-of-69), 50 percent from behind the arc (14-of-28) and averaging a team-high 19.0 points per game to go with 6.0 rebounds. She is second in the conference and 32nd in the country in field goal percentage and fifth in the league in scoring and leads the nation's 6-foot-4 players in 3-point shooting percentage and 3-pointers made.
In September, she won a silver medal with Australia at the 2018 FIBA World Cup after averaging 6.3 points and 2.3 rebounds in six games – one of only a handful of collegians at the tournament in Tenerife, Spain. She scored a team-high 10 points in the final against the United States to cap off the event, which was her fifth international tournament for her country.
Intensely interested in early childhood development, Smith spent a quarter last year at the Bing Nursery School on campus as part of her PSYCH 147 class. A supervised experience with young children, Smith was active in the seminar on developmental issues in the teaching and learning environment at Bing, which is a program within the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford with a mission to promote understanding of child development and improve the lives of young children.
Smith is involved in charitable causes throughout the community. She visits Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, playing games, interacting and spending time with patients at one of the country's foremost pediatric care facilities and has given her time at St. Anthony's Padua Dining Room, which provides hot, nutritious meals fifty-two weeks a year, charges no fees and turns no one away. Smith has also volunteered at Children's Champions, an annual family-friendly event benefitting at-risk children in the Bay Area featuring drills, clinics, obstacle courses, relay races, games and arts and crafts.
The No. 8 Cardinal, off to its best start in six seasons (6-0), plays at Gonzaga on Sunday, Dec. 2 at 2 p.m. before taking its customary two-week break for final exams.