DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The Embry-Riddle men's basketball team finished the 2017-17 opening weekend a perfect 2-0 with a 99-67 victory over Paine College on Saturday afternoon in the final game of the 2017 Daytona Mitsubishi/Kia Shootout. The Eagles (2-0) saw six players reach double-figures offensively, while holding the Lions (0-2) to less than 37 percent shooting from the field en route to their 10th consecutive win in the annual Shootout.
The home team dominated in the paint, piling up a 44-26 advantage in points in the paint, while similarly owning the rebounding battle, 56-30.
Nashad Mackey registered the first double-double of his Eagle career with 16 points and a game-high 13 rebounds, while
Joshua Hawkins also recorded a double-double of 13 points and 10 boards.
Paine took a 5-3 lead before
Elijah Jenkins, making his first collegiate start, nailed a triple to give the Eagles a one-point cushion and it would get to as many as 11 at 20-9 when
Ognjen Miljkovic scored an easy layup at the 11:51 mark. The hosts continued to pull away in the opening half, making it a 20-point game on a Mackey trey with six minutes left, but the Lions scratched back to 37-27 on a fastbreak dunk from Ronzell Evans with just over two minutes in the half.
ERAU led 42-31 at the break and Miljkovic started the second half with a three-pointer that pushed the lead to 45-31 and Paine never got closer than 11 the rest of the way.
Rudy Bibb-Boyd's layup at the 17:18 mark put the Eagles up by 16 (51-35) and after the teams traded baskets for the next few minutes, the Eagles again stretched the lead to 20 on a Miljkovic three, making it 74-54 with nine minutes to play.
The Blue and Gold continued to pull away over the final moments, ultimately taking its biggest lead of 32 on a Hawkins layup with 43 seconds left as ERAU prevailed 99-67.
Embry-Riddle shot just under 50 percent for the game, with a 14-for-24 effort beyond the arc. Bibb-Boyd paced the Eagles for the second straight game with 21 points, while Mackey (16), Miljkovic (15), Hawkins (13),
Luka Majstorovic (12) and
Brian Johnson (10) all scored in double-digits. ERAUÂ dished out 26 assists, with Miljkovic (6), Mackey (5), and Jenkins (5) leading the way.
Miljkovic's layup at the 13:25 mark of the first half pushed him over the 1,000-point plateau for his collegiate career. The Eagle senior scored 541 points in two seasons at Eastern Washington and has totaled 471 points in just 28 games for Embry-Riddle, putting him at 1,013 in four seasons.
Embry-Riddle will hit the road for the first time in the regular season as the Eagles travel to Palm Beach Atlantic on Wednesday, Nov. 15. The Sailfish also went 2-0 during the Shootout, beating Paine 110-73 on Friday before dispatching Mississippi College 101-87 on Saturday.
Photos
