Daniel Collie, a walk-on freshman guard from Parkersburg, W.Va., scored the last two points of Wright State’s regular season and the first two points of his career with 25 seconds left Saturday at the Nutter Center.

The Raiders on the bench erupted as if Collie had just hit a last-second shot to send them to the NCAA tournament. Reggie Arceneaux and Jerran Young waved towels in the air, looking a lot like the wind turbines in Indiana the team has seen from the bus on three — soon to be four — trips up Interstate 65 this season.

Collie’s shot didn’t mean much in the big scheme of things as Wright State dominated Youngstown State from start to finish for a 72-45 victory. In symbolic terms, though, that one basket said a lot about this team, about how far it’s come and about where it’s going.

A team that might not get one player on the all-conference team, a team whose leading scorer hasn’t seen the court in four games, finished the regular season 19-11 and earned the third seed in the Horizon League tournament. That’s because Valaparaiso beat Green Bay 75-56 on Saturday. Green Bay and Wright State tied for third at 10-6, but the Raiders get the higher seed and the first-round bye because they swept Green Bay.

Wright State will play in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. Friday at Valparaiso with every intention of winning three games and then celebrating an actual NCAA tournament berth.

“Coach said after a win like this, we should all be confident we can win the league,” junior Matt Vest said. “Obviously, it’s really evenly matched from top to bottom in this league, but going in, our confidence is really high.”

A season that started with so little promise ended with Wright State playing one of its most complete games of the season.

The Raiders shot 56 percent from the field, their best since December. They had all 12 of their steals, three short of a season high, in the first half as they built a 39-19 halftime lead. Eleven players scored. Only Young (14) and Vest (11) had more than 10.

Youngstown State beat the Raiders 68-61 on Jan. 23, but the Penguins, also playing without their top scorer, the injured Kendrick Perry, shot 36 percent in this one. They never got closer than 19 points in the second half.

It was Youngstown’s lowest-scoring game of the season by nine points.

“I’m proud of our guys,” coach Billy Donlon said. “When we got back from Christmas break, I told them if they wanted to win the league, they had to define themselves as a defensive team. I told them, ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings,’ but as a coach sometimes you have to hurt feelings.

“Every player thinks they’re really good offensively. Sometimes you get to this level and find out you’re not as good as you think. It’s a humbling experience. But there are a lot of good defenders in that locker room.”

The Raiders could see Youngstown again on Friday. The No. 6 seed Penguins (16-14, 7-9) host No. 7 seed Loyola (5-11, 15-15) on Tuesday, and Wright State plays the winner. The Raiders would then have to get by No. 2 seed Detroit in the semifinals on Saturday before potentially facing No. 1 seed Valparaiso three days later.

“With those kids in that locker room, with our depth, there’s no hesitation in my mind we can win,” Donlon said.