As common a surname as Smith is, there's no else like Alanna Smith, who is enjoying an other-worldly kind of season on so many levels.

Not exactly soft-spoken and not exactly out-spoken, Smith seems to maintain an air of coolness even in times of trouble. She's the kind of leader who seems to radiate confidence and allows her play on the court to speak for itself.

It's no wonder, then, that the sixth-ranked Stanford women's basketball team rallied around Smith to recover from a double-digit deficit to beat a motivated hoist in Colorado, 80-69, in a Pac-12 contest Friday night.

"I don't think we started as well as we could have and they came ready to go. They were really motivated and that showed," Smith said. "In the third quarter we really kicked it into gear. We can't start like that, but we came out with a W."

Smith scored 11 of her game-high 26 points in the third quarter, in which Stanford (17-1, 7-0) outscored the Buffaloes, 32-12, to help turn it around. Anna Wilson, who started the game, scored seven of her nine points in the quarter.