By Andy Walter

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Winning this thing again was never going to be easy for Delaware.

And it wasn’t.

Third-seeded Towson dominated from the opening tipoff, finally steamrolling the No. 6 Blue Hens, 86-60, in the CAA men’s basketball tournament quarterfinals at the D.C. Entertainment and Sports Arena on Sunday night.

The Tigers sprinted away to a 21-2 lead to start the contest and never looked back before ending defending champion Delaware’s season. Towson went up by as many as 27 in the first half and 34 in the second.

The Blue Hens (17-16) looked very much like a team that exhausted all their energy in eeking out a 77-74 overtime win over No. 11 Northeastern late Saturday night.

The loss snapped a four-game tourney winning streak for Delaware.

“I thought we had some good looks early on the offensive end that we weren’t able to convert,” said Blue Hens coach Martin Ingelsby. “Then we’re just digging ourselves out of a hole the whole game. Obviously a tough night for us.

“I thought we battled in the second half but, obviously, being down 26 at halftime was too big of a deficit for us to make up. ... It was just a tough first 20 minutes for us and we just could never get our hands around the game.”

The Hens had actually been 3-0 all-time vs. Towson in the CAA tourney before Sunday. That included a victory over the Tigers in last year’s CAA semifinals.

The two teams split their two regular-season meetings this winter. But Sunday’s game was all Towson.

Tigers’ standout Nicolas Timberlake, who netted a game-high 19 points, made it clear that Towson’s players were still motivated by last year’s loss to the Hens.

“We had that bad taste in our mouth from last year,” said Timblake. “I mean Towson hates Delaware. Any time you can beat a rival — especially in the playoffs — that makes it even better.”

The Hens actually played Towson even at 40-40 in the second half — not that it mattered. Jameer Nelson, Jr. netted a team-high 16 points with Christian Ray adding 13.

“Shots not falling early ... that was a killer,” said Nelson, Jr. “It is what it is. We’ve got to tip ou head to them. They made a lot of shots — a lot of timely shots.”

Delaware is slated to lose only a couple players to graduation: L.J. Owens and Nigel Shadd, who were only with the team this season, and Alex Novakovich, who was injured for most of his career.

“We’re disappointed with the outcome,” said Ingelsby. “We came down here with aspirations to win a championship like we did last year.”

Sports editor Andy Walter can be reached at walter@iniusa.org. Follow on Twitter at @DSNSports.