{"id":17112,"date":"2020-09-18T16:05:02","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T06:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=17112"},"modified":"2020-09-18T16:05:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T06:05:02","slug":"wnbl-player-spotlight-canberra-capitals-marianna-tolo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wnbl-player-spotlight-canberra-capitals-marianna-tolo\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBL Player Spotlight – Canberra Capitals – Marianna Tolo"},"content":{"rendered":"

TO complete Draft Central<\/em>\u2019s Player Spotlights on the University of Canberra Capitals this week, we focus on the second half of the side\u2019s backbone in four-time Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) champion and former Defensive Player of the Year, Marianna Tolo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The club announced on the second day of Free Agency that they re-signed their co-captain, which would precede the signing blitz of an additional five players in the following few days. Head coach of the Capitals Paul Goriss<\/em><\/strong> knew that signing Tolo first would be a major morale boost to the local fan base of Canberra and the club as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great for the fans and it\u2019s great for sponsorship,\u201d Goriss said to Draft Central<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see that players are sticking by us and are prepared to stay here when they could go to Europe and earn a lot more money than what they would playing in the WNBL.”<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to have that consistency and continuity, it really gives the group some stability and people love coming to watch the likes of Tolo play, so it was a huge signing to be able to keep her for a third season in a row,\u201d Goriss said.<\/p>\n

Having also been a part of the Capitals\u2019 squads that earned title glory back in the 2009 and 2010 winning seasons, Tolo cemented her Canberra legacy alongside Kelsey Griffin<\/strong> last season, as the pair won the franchise\u2019s ninth title in their history. But Tolo\u2019s season on an individual level was nothing short of elite. The 31-year-old achieved a well-earned stat line of 14.6 points per game, as well as collecting 7.6 rebounds each time out on the floor. Tolo also managed to maintain a ridiculously good field goal percentage, converting on 53.4 per cent of her shots over her 20-game season.<\/p>\n

Tolo, who is a definite inclusion for next year\u2019s Olympic Games as an Australian Opal, saw re-signing with the Caps as the perfect option for her preparations especially given the current situation regarding COVID-19.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say no when we have just won back to back. I had initially thought of going overseas but because the Olympics was postponed to next year as well as the ongoing Coronavirus situation… it seemed like the perfect decision to make,”\u00a0she said in her announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the way we train and play will prepare me perfectly for Olympics. The UC Capitals also really look after their players, so I know that they always consider my health during the season. They have been great with managing my injuries,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In terms of leadership, which was outlined in Kelsey Griffin\u2019s Player Spotlight piece<\/a>, both Tolo and Griffin are the perfect combination to lead Goriss\u2019 side according to the coach, but the Capitals\u2019 gaffer described what effect his center has on the squad and how she has maintained her level of greatness to this point of her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back, she has always prided herself on the defensive end,\u201d Goriss said. \u201cShe\u2019s always prided herself in getting those tougher matchups and neutralising the other team\u2019s defence and she loves doing that \u2018grunty\u2019 kind of work, as opposed to the offensive part of the game. But she\u2019s always been about the team first and sometimes I still feel we\u2019re just scratching the surface with her at the offensive end of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the rest of Draft Central\u2019s Player Spotlights on next season\u2019s Canberra Capitals squad \u2013 Click HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TO complete Draft Central\u2019s Player Spotlights on the University of Canberra Capitals this week, we focus on the second half of the side\u2019s backbone in four-time Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) champion and former Defensive Player of the Year, Marianna Tolo. The club announced on the second day of Free Agency that they re-signed their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":17037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2871,2815,11],"tags":[3523,172,173,2848,2314,745,1972],"class_list":["post-17112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uc-capitals","category-wnbl","tag-australia-opals","tag-kelsey-griffin","tag-marianna-tolo","tag-opals","tag-paul-goriss","tag-university-of-canberra-capitals","tag-wnbl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}