But having been there before, the experience of being in close games paid off for the Spartans, who puut the Bonnies away with a 67-59 win.

“We had played them once, but we needed to understand this is going to be like 15 rounds of a heavyweight fight,” Merchant said. “It’s not going to be a blowout situation. … They do a nice job with who and what they are.”

The Spartans (9-3) were paced by senior center Allyssa DeHaan, who took advantage of St. Bonaventure’s lack of height by scoring 18 points with nine rebounds on 7-of-9 shooting.

Although she only played eight minutes in the first half, scoring three points, DeHaan came on strong in 19 second half minutes.

Her 12-foot jumper from the corner put the Spartans up 63-59 with just less than a minute to play.

A few minutes earlier, MSU was up 57-47 – the Bonnies largest deficit of the season. But from there, St. Bonaventure went on a 12-4 run before DeHaan’s jumper stopped the rally in its tracks.

Merchant said DeHaan was struggling with a cold in the first half, which was the reason for her limited minutes.

“She made plays,” Merchant said. “She really was aggressive for us in the second half.”

But the biggest key to the game for MSU was shutting down St. Bonaventure’s on-target 3-point attack. The Bonnies came into the game shooting 47 percent from behind the long line. By herself, guard Jessica Jenkins was hitting 48.6 percent (36-of-74).

When the game was over, the Bonnies were 1-of-10 from 3-point range and Jenkins was 0-for-6 and 1-of-10 from the field.

“Their size bothered her a little early, then I thought Jess really battled herself,” St. Bonaventure head coach Jim Crowley said. “I thought when she missed a couple open ones she really was fighting herself, and that’s something she’s got to keep growing from. But they didn’t leave her and it was always someone with a good reach on her, so she didn’t get a lot of clean looks and they really had great discipline sticking to that.”

Merchant was content to not help on drives in order to stay true and not let the Bonnies get off from deep. Merchant said they decided to “pick their poison.”

“They’re just scary from the 3-point line,” Merchant said. “They shoot 46 percent from the 3-point line. I give our kids a lot of credit. (Jenkins) was a big part of our game plan, really trying to take her out. When you watch us play, I’m sure it was frustrating at times for fans wondering why people don’t help on drives, but that was the game plan.”

MSU was hurt by St. Bonaventure’s Dana Mitchell (18 points) and Megan Van Tatenhove (19 points), but no one else scored more than eight points. Mitchell and Van Tatenhove accounted for 58 percent of the Bonnies’ field goal attempts.

It was MSU’s second-half defense that made the difference in the game. The Spartans held St. Bonaventure to 36 percent from the field after allowing the Bonnies to shoot 53.6 percent in the first half. Midway through the half, MSU switched from a man-to-man defense to a zone defense that seemed to catch the Bonnies by surprise.

“That was a great move by Suzy,” Crowley said. “It stalled us a little bit and they did it when we had our shooter out. We got a couple pretty good looks off it, but couldn’t knock them down after a couple bad possessions. But what it did was slow our offense and allow our kids to remember that they’re tired.”

Merchant said the team is now off for the holidays until Sunday, when they’ll return to campus for three practices before heading to Wisconsin to resume Big Ten play against the Badgers on Dec. 28.

“This is a confidence builder right here,” sophomore forward Lykendra Johnson said. “We know where we want to be.”