“I don’t think we played as well offensively as we did against Bowling Green (in the WNIT second round), but Kansas really gets up in you, they really deny and pressure the lane passes,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said. “They were the toughest team we’ve played in terms of intensity, focus and being powerful to the rim.”

Kansas finished shooting 37 percent from the field.

The only run the Spartans managed came right at the beginning, with six straight points from freshman guard Brittney Thomas.

In a game that was evenly matched throughout, the lead changed hands six times and neither team went on a run of more than seven points in the first half. MSU took a lead of two points into the break, 26-24.

Thomas said the team was fatigued toward the end of the half, but Merchant talked that right out of her squad at halftime, and the team came out refocused in the second half.

“We knew it was going to be a physical game, they’re tough,” Thomas said.

The lead switched six more times in the second half before sophomore guard Mandy Piechowski pulled out her well-rehearsed weapon — a 3-point basket — with 6:04 left. Freshman forward Kalisha Keane quickly followed with a 3-point basket of her own to put MSU ahead by five points.

The largest lead held by either team was seven points by MSU with 3:40 left in the game after sophomore center Allyssa DeHaan capitalized on two free throws.

DeHaan led the team with 16 points. MSU held Kansas’s leading scorer, Danielle McCray, to 18 points.

Thomas said the team did a good job of defending McCray by not letting her gain momentum and get on any sort of run.

McCray sunk her only 3-point basket at the buzzer, but it was too little too late.

The biggest statistical discrepancy was the amount of points off of turnovers, with MSU claiming 21 points off of Kansas’s 22 turnovers and Kansas draining 13 points off of 16 Spartans turnovers.

MSU will next face Michigan in the WNIT’s fourth round at 2 p.m. Sunday at Breslin Center. The winner of that game will advance to the semifinals — and be the only Big Ten team left standing in any women’s postseason tournament.

“We were all pretty excited when we heard we were going to play them again,” Thomas said. “We know they want to play us again and we want to play them again.”