Shay Holle still has the photos as a little kid wearing her Texas cheerleader outfit. It crystallized what it meant to be a Longhorn when she watched Ariel Atkins and Brooke McCarty run wild in the Big 12 in the mid-2010s.

Holle, who grew up in Austin, wanted to be a Longhorn, too.

And she still gets giddy talking about how UT coach Karen Aston and the staff invited the Austin Westlake product to come across town “just to chat.”

“I was trying to play it cool a little bit,” Holle said with a laugh. “My mom immediately started crying, and I was like ‘oh, chill.’ But obviously, all of us were so happy. It was no secret it was my dream school and where I wanted to go.”

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Holle couldn’t foresee a Texas coaching change, a global pandemic or the Longhorns changing conferences. Through it all, she delivered. Now, with Tuesday’s win over Auburn, Holle became the winningest player in UT women’s and men’s basketball history with her 126th victory.

Holle passes a group of Longhorns icons who are now tied for second — Andrea Lloyd, Beverly Williams, Michele Eglinger and Yulonda Wimbish.

The Horns are 126-34 with Holle on the roster, and they’re 120-31 in games she played. With Holle in the starting lineup, Texas is an eye-popping 60-13. Brock Cunningham holds the UT men’s record with 110 victories in 147 games played.

During Holle’s four-plus seasons, the Horns have reached the NCAA Elite Eight three times and won the 2023 Big 12 title. Like all players who were affected, Holle got a fifth season of eligibility because of the pandemic.

Holle is ready to get out and see the world, ready to bust out of “a little 20-minute radius I’ve lived in.” She’s on track to earn a Master’s degree this spring to go with that undergraduate degree in finance. Basketball beyond that? Who knows? Anything is possible.

But Holle and the Longhorns aren’t done winning yet.

“I say this all the time, Shay made it. She made herself into a heck of a college player,” said UT coach Vic Schaefer, who inherited Holle as a recruit to start the 2020-21 season.

“You can never question her commitment level, investment level, where he two feet are,” Schaefer said. “You cannot put a value on what she’s meant to this program and to me personally and to our development of this program when we came in as a new staff. There’s a great deal of appreciation.”

Schaefer’s staff deserves credit for helping this 6-foot guard blossom into a durable workhorse. Holle didn’t start a single game her freshman season and averaged 1.1 points each night out. Fortunately, the numbers went up, and Holle played in every game the last two seasons and was named to the Big 12’s All-Defensive team as a junior.

Playing time is the best true measure of what a coach thinks of any player. Holle finished second in the Big 12 last season in minutes played with 1,242, six minutes behind the leader.

Think about the stamina alone it takes to average 32.7 minutes out of a 40-minute Division I game. Or the wherewithal to stay out of foul trouble.

“I think it’s really just that I focused on being consistent,” Holle said. “I think that is one of the best characteristics you can have in life but especially in sports. (When) the coach knows what he’s going to get out of me, even if maybe my shot’s not falling, I’m going to find another way to help him win in the game.

“And I think last year, it was definitely a really big trust factor, just (Schaefer) knowing that I knew what was going on and I was going to stay calm and tried to always level-headed. And I think he knows that he’s always going to get that out of me.”

Holle isn’t one of the best scorers in UT history. She may not even join 1,000-point club when it’s all said and done. That’s typically the minimum bar to reach if you want to be in the “best ever” conversation.

But there is no statistic for defensive heart, hustle and sheer want-to.

Schafer says it all the time. “I can't play you and then you show me. You need to show me in practice.” He values practice habits far more than what happens in a particular game. Holle made that her core mission in burnt orange.

“I think I've really focused on that and mastered it in a way of, like, I will show him every single day in practice that he can trust me,” Holle said. “And I think that comes how it showed on the court. I think that's why he kept me in for so long in all those games.

“We definitely, obviously, had some depth issues last year, which added to that,” she added. “But, yeah, it’s a trust thing, and I think it's just being consistent is always my main focus.”