ANAHEIM, California - The Embry-Riddle men's basketball team opened the 30th season of the Steve Ridder era with a huge, 72-69 victory over Concordia (Calif.) at the D2CCA TipOff Classic on Friday. The Eagles (1-0) got their 16th straight season-opening win, holding off a CUI (0-1) team picked third in the PacWest preseason poll.

Nashad Mackey started his senior season with the 24th double-double of his Eagle career, scoring 18 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, leading the Blue and Gold to the win.

None of Mackey's 18 points were bigger than his last two as the Nassau, Bahamas native calmly stepped to the free throw line and buried a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left to take a one-point Eagle lead out to three, and then great team defense did the rest as CUI's Robert Taylor attempted an off-balance three with three seconds left that hit th back of the iron before Tylin Lockett-Fuller grabbed the rebound to seal the win.

ERAU had to hold off a charging Concordia squad that cut an 11-point Embry-Riddle lead (50-39) at the 15-minute mark of the second half, down to two (54-52) after four straight free throws from Jamel White at the 10-minute mark.

Alston Jones found Joshua Hawkins with a great pass on the next Eagle possession and Hawkins' dunk pushed the Eagle lead back to four, but a three from CUI made it a one-point game.

Jones again found the open man the next trip down the floor, getting it to Cole Hunter in the corner who nailed a triple, but back-to-back layups from Robert Taylor tied the game at 59-59 with seven minutes to play.

Jones picked up his third straight assist when Mackey laid one in for a 61-59 lead and the two teams played tough defense over the next few minutes with neither team scoring until Geoff Gerlach tied the game with a tip-in.

Tied at 65-65 with 2:25 to play, Mackey put the Eagles up for good with a layup while being fouled, completing the three-point play for a 68-65 cushion.

On the next CUI possession, Cj Henagan came up huge for Embry-Riddle, blocking Taylor's layup attempt and tipping the loose ball off of a Concordia player out of bounds with 80 seconds left.

Again both defenses answered the bell over the next few moments with ERAU holding on to its three-point lead. Chris Murray battled for a rebound off a CUI miss with 23 seconds left, and after the freshman was fouled, he headed to the charity stripe for the front-end of a one-and-one. Murray came up short on his free throw attempt and when CUI rebounded it the Eagles sent Brian Chambers to the line with a foul with 20 seconds left.

Chambers connected on both free throws to trim the ERAU lead to 68-67. Lockett-Fuller was fouled on the ensuing possession and made the biggest free throws of his very young Eagle career to push the lead back to three.

A CUI layup with 10 seconds left again cut the lead to one, but Mackey did the rest, making both of his free throws before the defense of Embry-Riddle stood up for the win.

ERAU took a five-point lead (37-32) into the half as Elijah Jenkins hit his fourth three of the half at the buzzer to cap a first-half comeback. Concordia came out fast and went up 10-3 before the Eagles responded with a 7-0 run to tie it with 16:38 left in the period.

Embry-Riddle took its first lead of the day on a Jenkins three with 10 minutes to play and neither team led by more than three until the last minute of the half when the Eagles took their five-point advantage before the break.

ERAU shot 48 percent for the game and finished 8-for-16 from deep while enjoying a 42-26 rebounding advantage.

Joining Mackey in double-figures was Jenkins who finished with a career-high five threes for 15 points. Henagan added eight points and six rebounds, while Jones debuted in an Eagle uniform with six assists. Hawkins and Murray came up big off the bench with seven and six points, respectively.

"This is a great great way to start our trip and I could not be more proud with how our guys fought today," Ridder said. "Each guy that gave us minutes did something really good. We have work to do still, but I'm really happy with how we found a way to win today."

Embry-Riddle will take on Azusa Pacific (picked second in the preseason PacWest poll) tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. (PT)/4:30 p.m. (ET).