{"id":309962,"date":"2025-10-17T05:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309962\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T05:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:44:13","slug":"wnbl-building-a-reputation-in-wnba-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309962\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBL building a reputation in WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opal Jade Melbourne says the WNBL is building a reputation for turning WNBA bench-warmers into stars.<\/p>\n

The WNBL tips off on Saturday with a clash between the UC Capitals and Southside Melbourne Flyers at John Cain Arena, with the game being touted as the biggest season opener in the competition’s history.<\/p>\n

This WNBL campaign will feature at least 10 players who participated in the 2025 WNBA season.<\/p>\n

Several players have recently taken part in the WNBL and gone on to have successful stints in the US, including 2025 WNBA champion Jackie Young and All-Star Kayla Thornton.<\/p>\n

\"Kayla
\n Kayla Thornton, enjoying a Flyers basket, has gone from strength to strength in recent years. (Morgan Hancock\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“The coolest thing about the WNBL is it gives WNBA players real exposure to work on their game,” Capitals captain Melbourne told AAP.<\/p>\n

“Girls who come off the bench and play limited roles in the WNBA are coming over here to seek that opportunity and really get on their game.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen girls come over here and then have career-best years in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

“They get exposure to the Australian style of basketball, and we get to show what we’re like down here.<\/p>\n

“That’s the reputation that the league’s building.”<\/p>\n

The Capitals have recruited experienced heads for this season, bringing in Opals Sara Blicavs and Zitina Aokuso, and former Phoenix Mercury forward Kadi Sissoko.<\/p>\n

Capitals coach Paul Goriss came up to Melbourne during the WNBL pre-season tournament to share a simple message, saying “we are going to be so good this year”.<\/p>\n

Melbourne noted Goriss’ words boosted her belief the team, who have won a record nine WNBL titles, can return to finals for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n

“He (Goriss) cares, and he wants to see the best for you. He sees a lot of potential in you that you might not see in yourself,” the 23-year-old said.<\/p>\n

“We went through a big year last year. We put Canberra back in a position that we wanted it to be, and that’s being in finals contention, getting the crowd and the support back on track.”<\/p>\n

\"Bendigo
\n Bendigo Spirit enter this season as defending champions after grand final glory over Townsville. (Scott Radford-Chisholm\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Bendigo Spirit are looking to become back-to-back WNBL champions, 11 years after the club achieved the feat.<\/p>\n

However co-captain Marianna Tolo admits it will be hard without 2024 league MVP Sami Whitcomb, the WNBA’s most improved player Veronica Burton, and Kelly Wilson (pregnant).<\/p>\n

“It’s hard. Every player is different, and you can’t expect that someone’s going to do the same thing as someone else,” Tolo told AAP.<\/p>\n

“While we have lost, we’ve gained a lot in Izzy Borlase, Kelsey Rees, and Olivia Pollerd, some girls who have come back from college, which is a really tough experience.”<\/p>\n

\"Marianna
\n Marianna Tolo, dribbling against Sydney, knows the defending champions have some voids to cover. (Bianca De Marchi\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Sydney Flames’ import Keely Froling is also buzzing to get back on the court after missing out on much of last season with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

“It feels like a really long time since I played,” she told AAP.<\/p>\n

“Last season, I had a meniscus injury, which wasn’t huge, but it needed surgery. It was one of those ones we couldn’t really avoid.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opal Jade Melbourne says the WNBL is building a reputation for turning WNBA bench-warmers into stars. The WNBL…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":309963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[104,17407,17409,17406,50,17408,7883,13319,62,4676,67,132,68,232,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-309962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-daily-news","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-inkl","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-news-app","14":"tag-news-headlines","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-today-news","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-wnba","22":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115387922776713651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}