“The grace period is over. They know who I am, what I’m all about, what my expectations are and now it goes from expectations to accountability.”

Happy with the 10-3 ending to this season, the two things Merchant said the team needs to do for more success next season is find its leaders and work overtime in the offseason.

The team had its first meeting since the end of the season Tuesday to discuss its potential for next year among many other things.

“A lot of people are talking about what we accomplished this year with such a young team and injuries and how good potentially we can be,” Merchant said. “Potentially. That is the key to me.”

For her team to reach its most productive point, this offseason is considered to be incredibly important to Merchant. She has stressed shooting 1,000 shots or more a day and intense conditioning will be vital for future seasons.

“You can’t just say you’re going to be good because you’re getting (junior forward Aisha Jefferson) back, you’re only going to be good by getting to the gym,” she said. “That’s what made us good down the stretch, that blue-collar mentality.”

A leader is what Merchant spent much of the season searching for, especially after losing her natural leader, Jefferson, to an ACL tear in the exhibition season.

To avoid that problem next year, and because the leadership on the Spartans squad is that important, the team has voted on next season’s captains — although Merchant is not yet ready to reveal who they are.

“The defensive transition and rebounding I would say are something that have to be addressed better from a coaching standpoint,” Merchant said of next season. “We need to really evaluate what we’re doing and incorporate those more on a daily basis.”

Merchant also wants to work on the consistency aspect of her team, but with the loss of Jefferson before the season even got underway, it was hard from the start.

“Obviously, a big part of what we were going to do involved Aisha Jefferson,” Merchant said.

“So three days before we were going to start we had to start changing things, which was hard. We had to change things because of what changed for us.”

Merchant knew changes needed to be made when taking the job in April, but with NCAA rules, she couldn’t work with the team on the court until months later.

Merchant and the team have a new goal — returning to Breslin Center next March. This time, not for the WNIT but for the NCAA Tournament where MSU will host the first and second round.

“(The NCAA Tournament) was a topic of discussion in our meeting, so it’s already in their heads,” Merchant said. “You don’t ever like to say (the WNIT) was better for this team (than the NCAA Tournament).”