And to get to March this season, the MSU women’s basketball team is going to need to continue its strong performances on its end of the court.

The team has been dominating on the defensive side of the ball this season, leading the Big Ten in most of the defensive categories. And it’s outrebounding the competition by more than 10 rebounds per game.

MSU leads the conference in field goal percentage defense, blocked shots and every rebounding statistic, and is in the top three in perimeter defense and scoring defense.

The team is pulling in nearly four more rebounds per game than the 2005 national finalist team and seven more than last season’s team.

The defense has room for improvement, though, a fact it showed when head coach Suzy Merchant switched the lineups to get more energy on offense.

The addition of freshmen forwards Courtney Schiffauer and Lykendra Johnson to the starting lineup has added length and athleticism to the Spartans 2-3 zone, a staple that has helped the team hold opponents to only 34 percent from the field this season.

Though neither player posted huge numbers in Thursday’s 64-52 victory over Northwestern, their impact was noticeable.

In her first few minutes on the court, Schiffauer took a charge, then blocked a shot on successive trips down the floor, giving the team a jolt it was sorely missing in the two conference losses to Indiana and Ohio State.

The new look helped hold the Wildcats to 21 percent shooting in the first half and only 11 percent from behind the arc.

All of that is huge for a team that has struggled on the offensive side of the ball the way the Spartans have this season.

MSU is near the top of the conference in scoring, but has been hampered by a turnover problem that kills rallies, especially when the team is playing from behind. The Spartans are averaging 21.5 turnovers per game, which until recently, were mostly because of ill-advised passes and impatient play.

When the team made bad turnovers, they were often followed by bad fouls, which putting it deeper into the hole it was digging itself.

The problem was corrected in the Northwestern game, as the Spartans had only seven turnovers in the second half, a stark decline from previous games when the number could reach the low teens.

But a sign of improvement against one of the teams at the bottom of the conference can only be taken with a grain of salt.

The Spartans play three of their next five games at home and have road games against rivals Michigan and Northwestern. The team will need to keep up the solid performances in those games to give itself true momentum heading into the end of the regular season and postseason play.

This team has the talent. It has the defense. What it needs is the effort.

When that is there, the Spartans are deadly and can match up with almost anyone in the country. They showed as much against Purdue, a team that followed the MSU loss with an 11-point win over then-No. 4 Texas.

Now all we need to see is that type of basketball for more than just one-game spurts.