AMES — There is no more next year for Nate Heise.
The same goes for other college basketball seniors, whether they be in Ames or elsewhere.
We’re at the point in the regular season when you can count the number of games left on two hands.
There are nine regular-season games left, including five at Hilton Coliseum. After that, there are no guarantees of postseason contests, either at the Big 12 or NCAA Tournaments.
“It feels different to me, just knowing that there is an end because last year, there’s not an end,” Heise said. “There’s a whole other summer, there’s a whole other fall and then the whole season, so just knowing that’s not the case this year, I think it does give you an extra sense of motivation and urgency.”
With that added urgency, Heise had a strong start to the penultimate month of the college basketball regular season.
He had 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, including a stretch where he scored eight straight points in the Cyclones’ 95-61 beatdown of Kansas State.
It was a new season-high scoring mark against power-conference competition for Heise, but he also had five rebounds and five assists to top off his high-energy 23-minute outing on Feb. 1.
If it’s the start of another late-season surge for the Iowa State sixth man, his teammates will surely welcome it.
“Just the confidence that he brings, we can all sort of feel it when he gets going, the whole team gets that feeling where it’s going to be one of those games that we’re all going to feel good when we see him do it,” said Cyclones’ senior Tamin Lipsey. “We know that he can do it, we see it in practice every day, so we want him shooting all those shots, not passing anything down, driving to the hoop and being aggressive.”
Last season, Heise turned a corner in the middle of February and closed out the 2024-25 campaign strong.
Over the final 13 games of last season, he averaged 8.0 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.5 steals while shooting 65.0% overall and 57.6% from deep.
This year, he’s been a key cog off the bench as the team’s defensive captain and a rebound-hustler as a guard. He’s been an impactful player in the Cyclones’ winning efforts in ways that aren’t always clearly measured in the box score.
His coaches and teammates believe that his recent performances against Kansas State and Colorado are the start of even greater things to come for Heise.
The scoring uptick is more than just simple February magic, although it is an interesting coincidence in timing.
“There can be times during the season where maybe other guys are just scoring the ball so well and things are going well that he feels like, ‘Well, the team doesn’t need me to do as much offensively, they’re doing fine without me and I’ll focus on other areas,'” said coach T.J. Otzelberger. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.
“… I’m going to say, ‘Nate, score the ball. Nate, be aggressive, attack the closeout.’ It’s not going to change because we need it, it’s important, we have to have it. I want him to feel more like that’s the oxygen our team needs to breathe than it’s an extra benefit. It’s something we have to have.”
While there’s only a finite number of games left, it’s a gauntlet that includes marquee matchups against No. 11 Kansas, No. 8 Houston, No. 13 Texas Tech, No. 14 BYU and No. 1 Arizona. With that daunting slate of games, finding the motivation to hit that extra gear won’t be an issue for Heise.
It also helps to have the assurance of a green light.
“It’s always good to hear your coach say score the ball, shoot, shoot, shoot, and that’s just kind of what he’s been saying the last couple of weeks,” Heise said. “That’s beneficial to me and just knowing that we need that as a team in order to be successful, so that’s probably the biggest thing to stay aggressive.”
As Joshua Jefferson, Milan Momcilovic and Lipsey receive more attention from opponents, there will be plenty of open opportunities Heise to strike.
Perhaps February is his favorite month of the year, or it’s the added assertiveness when he plays with the regular season nearly coming to an end, but there’s no doubting that Heise heating up can only mean good things for the Cyclones’ ceiling come March and, quite possibly, April.
“We need that fight and when we see it, it shows up in so many areas,” Otzelberger said. “Whether it’s the narrative that we’re entering February, which I don’t believe in any narratives like that. I just think it’s mental focus on what matters, consistency, habits that win out, but I think Nate definitely knows right now how important he is to this team and why wouldn’t you have such a great sense of urgency if you’re him?
“You’ve had a lot more yesterdays than you do tomorrows, so make the most of that thing.”
Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State basketball sixth man Nate Heise heats up at the right time
Reporting by Eugene Rapay, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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