Stanford senior Alanna Smith was reunited together with her Australian National Team coach Sandy Brondello once she became the Phoenix Mercury's initial spherical draft choose, the eighth overall choose, of the WNBA Draft at Nike NYHQ in big apple on Wednesday.

Smith and Brondello helped Team Australia to the laurel wreath at the 2018 World Cup, losing within the championship game to the us, comprised of veteran WNBA players.

Phoenix finished 20-14 last season, reaching the league's final four for the sixth consecutive season. The Mercury begin coaching camp could five and opens the season could twenty five at metropolis.
The 6-foot-4 forward with a 3-point bit became the twenty sixth Stanford player written into the WNBA and therefore the twelfth first-round choice.

Smith, associate All-American, had an outstanding senior season during which she shot fifty one.5 % from the sphere, 39.7 % from behind the arc and averaged a team-high nineteen.4 points per game to travel with eight.6 rebounds and a pair of.2 blocks. She was one amongst 2 players within the country to average nineteen.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and a pair of.0 blocks per game this season and her numbers were even higher in conference.

She place up twenty.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and a pair of.9 blocks in eighteen Pac-12 games and was one amongst simply 2 across the nation to own those averages united action.

Smith, the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the year and a tutorial All-American, light-emitting diode Stanford to its thirteenth Pac-12 Tournament title with a 64-57 persuade Oregon in city on March ten. She was named the tournament's greatest player once posting double-doubles in every of the Cardinal's 3 wins and averaging eighteen.7 points and twelve.3 rebounds.

Smith finished her career tenth in class history in marking (1,703) and second in blocks (225) and created one hundred fifty five career 3-pointers. She is simply the fourth NCAA women's athlete over the past twenty years to place along a career of one,600 points, one hundred fifty created triples and two hundred blocks.

Since 1999-00, the sole others to try and do that are Elena Delle man of the cloth (3,039 points; 206 3-pointers; 273 blocks), Maya Moore (3,036 points; 311 3-pointers; 204 blocks) and Breanna Stewart (2,676 points; 152 3-pointers; 414 blocks).

Smith, United Nations agency had eighty one triples, seventy eight blocks and 699 points is that the solely NCAA women's athlete to accumulate seventy 3-pointers, seventy blocks and 600 points in a very season within the last twenty years. it's been done once on the men's aspect throughout that span, by Shane Battier for Duke in 2000-01 (124 3-pointers; eighty eight blocks; 778 points).

Her eighty one created 3-pointers this season are the second most for a player her height over the past twenty seasons. She was thirty fourth within the country in marking (19.4) and thirty third in blocks per game (2.17), the sole player within the NCAA in the prime forty in each classes.

Smith's seventy eight rejections are second in Stanford history behind Jayne Appel's eighty four in 2007-08 and her eighty one created 3-pointers are tied for eighth, as is that the 699 points she scored.

She is simply the fourth player in program history to earn each All-America and tutorial All-America honors, connection Chiney Ogwumike, Kristin Folkl and Kate Starbird.

Since the WNBA's inaugural season (1997), twenty nine former Stanford players have appeared in a very regular-season game and 7 players have won a combined eight WNBA championships.