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YOUNGSTOWN -- It boils down to two games for the Youngstown State men's basketball team.
Win both, and the Penguins find themselves in the top four of the Horizon League, earning a first-round bye in the conference tournament and a home quarterfinal game.
In fact, the Penguins could find themselves as high as second by Saturday night, or as low as seventh depending on how things play out.
The bottom line, however, is this: YSU (18-11, 12-7) controls its own destiny to some extent as it visits Wright State (16-13, 13-7) at 7 o'clock tonight (ESPN+, 570 AM WKBN) and Northern Kentucky (16-11, 12-6) on Saturday.
"It's really about how you finish; that's what sports are about," YSU coach Jerrod Calhoun said. "Our guys have had a good mindset. ... I think our guys are excited. I think they understand what's at stake, and now you get to go out and play good basketball."
And that's exactly what it will take to come away with a weekend sweep. In their first meetings with the Raiders and Norse, the games were decided by a total of four points. The Penguins fell to NKU, 68-67, but topped Wright State, 90-87. Those games were held in mid-January.
The shootout with the Raiders came even as Wright State played with just six men. Of them, five played at least 30 minutes, and three --Tanner Holden, Keaton Norris and Tim Finke -- played the full 40. Grant Basile played 39.
"That game was definitely a different type of game," Calhoun said. "We won that game with our offense, and that was a wild game. They didn't have a lot of their guys, so just looking at it, we watched (the game) a couple nights ago. It was a strange game. I think our defense has to travel. We have to be performing at a high level, and certainly can't give up that many points and expect to win on the road."
Holden and Basile, who Calhoun describes as "the head of the snake", lead WSU in scoring at 19.8 and 17.8 points per game, respectively. Trey Calvin adds 14 points per game.
Calhoun says the Raiders operate with an inside-out mentality, using their balance to attack YSU's defense on all fronts.
"They're going to throw the ball inside," Calhoun said. "They're going to play to their strengths -- that's what most good teams do -- and their strength is inside. That opens up the outside for them. So you have to be really, really good guarding the post, and you have to be really good in transition because they do get out and run."
Wright State, currently fourth in the conference standings, enters having lost three of its last four. It's been a streaky season for the Raiders, who lost seven of their first nine games before ripping off seven straight victories. That win streak was ended by YSU, and then WSU evenly split its next four games.
The Raiders followed with a four-game win streak until their recent decline.
"We just seem to have a problem with emotionally being in a good spot one game and not the next," WSU coach Scott Nagy told the Dayton Daily News this week. "We can't even it out."
YSU, currently sixth, has won eight of its last nine and two straight since its surprising loss to Robert Morris. Dwayne Cohill has scored in double figures in each of the last 15 games and is averaging 16.2 points per game over the last 23 contests, while Michael Akuchie has rattled off three consecutive double-doubles.
"You put yourself in a position after five years to try to continue to move our program, and that's what we've tried to do from Day 1," Calhoun said. "Now's the time to take that next step."