STANFORD, Calif. – Senior forward Alanna Smith and sophomore guard Kiana Williams are on the John R. Wooden Award Women's Preseason Watch List.
The list is comprised of 30 players who are the early front-runners for the John R. Wooden Award All American Team and Most Outstanding Player Award. It is chosen by a preseason poll of national women's college basketball media members. Stanford is one of six schools with multiple players selected.
An All-Pac-12 performer in 2017-18, Smith is Stanford's leading returning scorer and rebounder. She started all 35 games as a junior and averaged 13.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.77 blocks in 28.4 minutes. Smith finished eighth in the league with seven double-doubles and became the Cardinal's 40th 1,000-point scorer (1,004) in the season's final game against No. 3 Louisville.
She was also selected as one of 20 players to the watch list for the 2019 Katrina McClain Award, which recognizes the top power forward in women's college basketball, and is on the five-person preseason All-Pac-12 Team.
This summer Smith became the sixth Stanford player to appear in a FIBA World Cup when she won silver with Australia at the tournament in Tenerife, Spain. One of just a handful of collegians at the event, Smith averaged 6.3 points and 2.3 rebounds in six games, which included a team-high 10 points in the championship against the United States.
It was the 22-year-old's second go-around with her country's Senior Women's National Team. She made her debut and won silver at last summer's FIBA Asia Cup in Bangalore, India and was one of two Australian players to score in double figures at that tournament, averaging 10.8 points on 58.3 percent shooting and 5.3 rebounds.
Williams had a standout freshman campaign in 2017-18, was named All-Pac-12 honorable mention and also landed on the Pac-12 All-Freshman and Pac-12 All-Tournament teams. Twenty-six players were voted either All-Pac-12 or all-conference honorable mention last season and Stanford's dynamic playmaker was the only freshman among them. She is on this year's watch list for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award given to the nation's best shooting guard.
The 5-foot-8 Williams played in all 35 games a year ago and averaged 10.4 points on 41.4 percent shooting (128-of-309), including a 38.4 percent clip from deep (71-of-185), 1.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists. She was fourth in the conference in 3-point percentage (.384) and fifth in makes (71). Her 71 made triples are the second most for a Stanford freshman in program history.
Williams improved by leaps and bounds as the season wore on and after averaging 3.1 points and shooting 20.7 percent (6-of-29) in her first seven collegiate games, she upped those numbers to 12.2 points on 43.6 percent shooting (122-of-280) in the final 28. She scored in double figures in 19 of the season's last 28 games and averaged 13.3 points per game in the NCAA Tournament, which was third among the country's freshmen.
No. 7 Stanford starts its regular season tomorrow night when it hosts UC Davis at 7 p.m.