The Real Stailee Heard Finally Stood Up Just in Time To Power Cowgirls to a Comeback Win Over Colorado

STILLWATER —Midseason additions have been a hot topic in college basketball lately, but this week the Cowgirls might have landed one of the biggest in junior Stailee Heard.

Although the junior started every game this season, her head coach Jacie Hoyt would say the real Heard just showed up.

“I’m glad she’s back,” Hoyt said. “It makes a huge difference for us.”

For most of the first two months of the season, OSU didn’t need heroic performances from Heard.

This week the junior Cowgirl dusted off her cape just in time, scoring 21 points and grabbing eight rebounds to power the Cowgirls to a 63-56 win over Colorado on Sunday afternoon.

“The last couple months, I’ve seen (the old) Stailee in practice,” Hoyt said. “She just was struggling to put it together in games. She mentioned trusting the process earlier, and she’s just stayed the course, and she has not gone away from her process, as frustrating as that may have been at times, and I’m really grateful for that. Because it was kind of baby steps, you know, like she started doing it in practice, and then she started doing it consistently in practice, and then we finally, you know, got it going in games. And now all that’s behind us, right?”

That last question was aimed directly at Heard, sitting next to her at the postgame press conference.

Her performance comes just four days after Heard topped 20 points for only the second time this season when she put up 23 at No. 13 TCU.

Her recent uptick in scoring and her rebounding on Sunday were notable considering Heard entered the week averaging 10.1 points and 4.3 rebounds this season. Both represent steep drop offs for the junior who averaged 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game last season.

Heard looked more aggressive driving to the basket and behind the arc this week.

In her last two games, Heard averaged 17.5 shots from the floor including eight 3-point attempts. In the first 16 games, the junior averaged 7.8 shots overall and only 3.4 behind the arc.

Heard said none of that was a point of emphasis from her coaches this week. Or rather it wasn’t a new point of emphasis.

“Honestly, they’ve been talking to me about it since the season started,” Heard said. “But I guess I just decided to wake up when conference got here. … I’m a leader on this team, so I have to lead by example, and I have to lead. So whatever it takes to win, you know, I’m willing to do.”

As it turned out, the Cowgirls (14-4, 3-2 Big 12) needed everything she had and then some to secure the win on Sunday after the Buffaloes (11-6, 2-3 Big 12) used an 11-3 run spanning more than six minutes to take a 4-point lead with six minutes left to play.

Oklahoma State responded with a 10-0 run that started with a Heard 3-pointer before Jadyn Wooten took over, scoring five unanswered points. That put OSU back up by six, and the Cowgirls never led by less than four the rest of the game.

“It just makes a huge difference when Stailee is playing the way that she is now,” Hoyt said of the run. “It gives me so much flexibility to just put the ball in different people’s hands. … I’m seeing more and more of the old Stailee, I know everyone wants to talk about her offense today, but we, we go, Jadyn makes those five points in a row, and then they come down, they shoot a shot and I just remember this happening a lot last year, like the shot goes up and I’m waiting to see who gets it, and then Stailee just jumps, flies out of nowhere and comes up with it. And that’s what she did for us.”

Wooten finished with 11 points putting her third behind only Heard and Micah Gray who knocked down three second-half 3s to finish with 15 total points. Gray’s late surge came despite breaking her nose in practice on Saturday.

“She didn’t cry,” Hoyt said. “It was never a question if she was going to play or not. If the doctor says she could play, she was going to play. She got some shots up this morning with a face mask on, and (I) actually think it helped her.

“So yeah, the face mask is here to stay for a while, which is good, but no, she’s just, I got to brag on her toughness, because I thought that she was physically tough in responding to that injury, but also just really mentally and emotionally tough for us today.”

Through the first 17 games, Oklahoma State largely played to the script. The Cowgirls crushed virtually all teams beneath them and lost, albeit competitively, when matched up with some of the nation’s best.

Although Oklahoma State has struggled to rack up the kind of signature win that can propel a team into the top seed conversation, the Cowgirls’ consistency against everyone else gave them a meaningful case for a decent postseason position in the NCAA Tournament.

Colorado entered the game ranked No. 58 in the NET, making this a high Quad 3 opponent for OSU. Sunday’s win shouldn’t move the needle much, but a loss could have, considering it would have dropped OSU to 1-2 against Q3 opponents and 2-5 against teams in Quads 1, 2 and 3.

Sunday was also unique because it’s one of the only times this season the Cowgirls fell behind in the fourth quarter and won.

“Today was really good for our team because we had to grow up in a way of when your back feels like it’s against the wall, who’s going to step up?” Hoyt said. “And I think that there’s really just a very real thing that you have to hate to lose more than you love to win. And I do believe that about both Stailee and Jadyn, and I saw that in them today.”