But playing U-M provides its own set of difficulties. The Wolverines love shooting 3-pointers They’ve shot 81 more threes than the next closest team in the Big Ten.

“They shoot a lot more (than the rest of the Big Ten), and 42 percent of their offense comes from the arc,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said.

“We need to be able to get out there and extend a bit more so we can handle the dribble-drive. They do it in a lot of different ways, and a lot of it’s off of a drive and a kick. We’ve been working pretty hard on defending that, we know who their key shooters are, but know that everybody can shoot the basketball.”

To deal with the emphasis on long-range shots, Merchant said the team has been working hard on getting defensive rebounds. Though rebounding has never been a problem for the Spartans — they lead the conference in every rebounding category — U-M’s style of play may cause problems on the boards.

“They’re going to be long and kind of interesting rebounds at times,” Merchant said. “Long shots lead to long rebounds. (U-M has) improved their offensive rebounding, and a lot of that is because they are long rebounds that they can chase some things down.”

The Wolverines’ defensive style can be frustrating, as well, Merchant said.

“The way that Michigan plays defensively, they’re going to pack the paint,” Merchant said. “We’re going to have to do a good job of getting out to the perimeter and making shots or hitting pull-up jumpers. They do a nice job off of dribble-drives and postentry passes of really collapsing. So we’re going to have to do a good job of knocking shots down from the perimeter.”

They also boast 6-foot-6 center Krista Phillips, who has been used in the past to bully junior center Allyssa DeHaan.

“On one end, they try to overpower (DeHaan) on the block on defense, and then on offense they try to bring her away from the rim so she’s less effective,” Merchant said. “She’s not starting right now, so I’m not sure how the dynamics of that go. But they’ve always been on the floor at the same time. So we’ll have to see and manage that. But she’s big, power body and she can really play physical basketball.”