DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The No. 5 Embry-Riddle University men's basketball team probably couldn't have scripted a better ending to their 89-49 demolition of Brevard (N.C.) College Friday evening in the first round of the 7th Annual Daytona Mitsubishi Shootout.

The Eagle defense rebounded after allowing Flagler to shoot better than 56 percent in Tuesday's 83-78 road win, to limit Brevard (1-5) to 30.4 percent for the contest.  The Blue and Gold offensive unit was unstoppable hitting 62.3 percent of its attempts (38-for-61). 

ERAU (7-1) opened with a 9-0 run in the first three minutes of the game and pushed the lead to 18-5 with 14 minutes left in the first half.  Brevard could do little to limit the Eagle offense and found themselves trailing by 24 at the break 45-21. 

The second half was much more of the same as the Blue and Gold defensive unit tightened up even more holding the Tornadoes to 9-for-31 from the floor (29.0 percent), while the Eagle offense got even better hitting 20-of-31 (64.5 percent).

Denny Joseph, who leads the team in scoring with 16.0 per game, finished wth a team-high 18 off the bencn on 7-for-11 from the floor, while Ryan Exter added 17 on 7-for-10 shooting (3-for-5 from downtown).  Ryan Ridder directed the first-team offensive unit to perfection handing out nine assists with no turnovers and scored five points in 25 minutes of action.

Jonathan Whitson led the Tornadoes with 16 points and seven boards.

The Eagles will be making their seventh appearance in the Daytona Mitsubishi Shootout Championship game on Saturday at 8 p.m. against Methodist (N.C.) which defeated Baruch (N.Y) 71-55 in the first game of the Shootout.  Baruch will face Brevard in the consolation game at 6 p.m.