The experience of highs and lows - all basketball players reach to that certain point of learning. The Australia pivot Marianna Tolo agrees with that well.

Tolo, a couple of years later, experienced her huge and perhaps the biggest disappointment of her entire career when Graf decided not to take her with the Opals to the Olympics. 

Now the 25-year-old's head is held high again.

She's in the cloud nine after putting on the finest performance of her career at the FIBA World Championship for Women.

Tolo proved to be a foundation of strength, leading the Opals in scoring (12.2ppg) and rebounds (5.2rpg) and helping them secure the bronze medal.

"It's been awesome," Tolo said to FIBA.com. 

"It was tough at the start because having Liz Cambage out late in the preparation, I had a massive role change. Coming in and starting, that was huge for me." 

"My whole focus was to come in and defend," she said.

"If you defend, things are going to flow into place on the offense. I was able to do that and towards the end of the tournament, that kept it going for me."

With Bourges in the 2013-14 EuroLeague Women, she scored 22 points in a 77-69 upset of then defending champions UMMC Ekaterinburg.

The experience has bolstered her confidence and made her, she says, a much better player.

"Yes, definitely," she said. 

"It's such a good experience to have six games like that."

"Each game was tougher and tougher."

"It was good to have that challenge and to be able to step up."

Tolo and Australia played so well at the World Championship that some thought they had the second best side in the competition after the defending champs, United States.

"We just have to keep doing what we are doing and hopefully, some shots will fall next time," she said. 

"That was, I think, what hurt us (against the USA). We'll keep working at it." 

The return of Cambage could affect Tolo's role played.

"It will just be how it is," she said. 

"I'm used to being behind Liz and I'm happy with either role. I'm fine with it."

"It was tough having a Semi-Final against the U.S. which was sort of like a gold medal game," she said, "but credit to us that we came out firing against Turkey and we stepped up after such a tough loss and just nailed it on defense." 

(Source: 2014 FIBA World Cup Official Website)