STILLWATER — Bulky as they were, it wasn’t Stailee Heard’s numbers on the final stat sheet that impressed Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach Jacie Hoyt the most in Wednesday night’s 67-54 win over Central Florida.

The Cowgirls’ 5-foot-11 freshman guard had 15 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals to the delight of the Gallagher-Iba Arena crowd.

Yet to Hoyt, the most important moments of Heard’s night came throughout the final minutes of the first quarter, and most of the second, as OSU built up a 37-27 halftime lead.

OSU veteran point guard Anna Gret Asi was tagged with two fouls in a 30-second span, the last coming with 3:03 left in the first quarter, and she headed to the bench.

“Outside of how impressive those numbers are, the more impressive thing to me was that she ran the team when Anna Gret went out early,” Hoyt said. “We’ve been playing without a point guard all season, so those two have really bounced back and forth and helped each other out in that area.

“When one of them goes down, the whole load falls on their shoulders. I thought Stailee was excellent at controlling the game.”

Heard hit a rough stretch in late January, as is typical with freshmen being asked to play as much as she is. She had a string of five games in which she scored more than nine points just once. Her rebound and assist numbers dipped, and her turnovers rose.

Yet she pushed through, and has averaged 16.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists over the last four games. In three of those, she never came off the floor, and has now played all 40 minutes five times this season.

“One of the positive things about this type of season is she didn’t have anywhere to run,” Hoyt said. “She’s gotta be on the floor for us, and that’s hard. A lot of freshmen have the luxury of, you know, ‘I’ll play behind this upperclassman and figure it out and learn.’ She can’t do that. There’s not been anywhere for her to hide.

“And thankfully for us, Stailee’s not the type of person who backs down.”

Here are three takeaways from the Cowgirls victory:

More: Oklahoma State women's basketball: Breaking down the Cowgirls' 2023-24 roster

Hannah Gusters strong inside

OSU center Hannah Gusters continues to show her offensive prowess around the rim, hitting 9 of 13 field goals as she scored 19 points. With her seven-point effort against Houston on Saturday as the outlier, Gusters has scored at least 13 points in seven of the last eight games.

The 6-foot-5 Gusters sat out a full year after transferring from LSU in December of 2022, finally playing her first game as a Cowgirl two months ago. She had not played in a game since March of 2022.

“She was great when she came back, but you gotta shake some rust off,” Hoyt said. “I think we’re all just seeing Hannah develop and get into her element after sitting out for so long.

“I think a lot of her success is our guards are figuring out how to play with a post player of her size and her caliber. Hannah has a great ability to catch hard passes. She’s got great feet, great touch around the rim, she can shoot it from 15-foot range, and that makes her really good.”

Lior Garzon hot from deep

OSU forward Lior Garzon fired her first look from 3-point range early in the game and it sailed wide of the rim, touching nothing on its way out of bounds.

Not an ideal start for the sharpshooter, but she zeroed in quickly, hitting four of her next six tries from deep on her way to 14 points. She added five assists, including one of the most unique ones of the night.

Guard Quincy Noble had an open look from the corner, but instead passed to Garzon on the wing, and though she also had a clean look, Garzon instead fired the ball right back to Noble, who didn’t pass up the shot the second time, hitting it in front of the Cowgirl bench.

“That was probably my favorite moment of the game,” Hoyt said. “I think that moment was, ‘Hey, I thought you were open,’ and then Lior passes it back like, ‘No, it’s your shot.’

“Just to see the smiles, that was a really cool moment, and they are very selfless.”

The Cowgirls had 20 assists on 27 made shots. In addition to the five each from Heard and Garzon, Asi added six.

“Coach Jacie preaches all the time to share the ball,” Heard said. “That’s what she said at halftime, don’t worry if you’re scoring a lot. Points don’t matter. We just need to get stops, share the ball, and we’ll be fine.”

Noble had a quiet first half but hit a pair of 3-pointers after the break, finishing with nine points. The super-senior transfer from North Texas has been a consistent offensive presence, scoring at least eight points in all but two games this season.

A shoutout to her staff

After the loss to Houston last Saturday, Hoyt apologized to the crowd for what she deemed an unacceptable effort.

Effort was not an issue Wednesday night. Though the Cowgirls have just seven healthy players in the primary rotation, each made an impact in the win.

And in Wednesday’s postgame address, Hoyt saluted her players for the strong turnaround.

But Hoyt heavily praised her staff as well. Not only were the Cowgirls battling through the injury issues that have plagued much of their season, Hoyt herself was sidelined with an illness much of the week.

“We’ve been going through a lot and our staff kept it together,” Hoyt said, particularly noting the work of first-year assistant Kelby Jones for implementing his scouting report of UCF. “I haven’t been feeling well and just not able to be around as much as I want, not able to prepare in the way I normally would for a game.

“It doesn’t just stop at Kelby. Every single one of them, they kept the team together, and it’s just really unbelievable to have a staff you can trust so much and is so incredibly loyal to the program and the process and what we’re trying to do.”

The Cowgirls are back in action Saturday, this time on the road.

Three weeks after OU defeated OSU 81-74 at Gallagher-Iba Arena, the teams will meet again at Lloyd Noble Center in Norman. The Sooners host OSU at 1 p.m. Saturday, televised by Fox.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State women's basketball rolls past UCF ahead of Bedlam clash