By Andy Walter

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — In Delaware’s brief NCAA Tournament history, an actual Blue Hens’ lead in any game is hard to find.

So a seven-point advantage on sixth-ranked Villanova? That’s highlight-reel material in Delaware’s Big Dance experience.

“I’m pretty sure we appreciated it,” senior guard Kevin Anderson said about the advantage. “But as soon as we started appreciating it, they started hitting threes.”

And once the Wildcats started sinking threes, the tide turned for good on Friday afternoon.

No. 2-seeded Villanova hit 13 threes, pulling away late in the first half before registering an 80-60 victory over the No. 15 Blue Hens in the NCAA South Region’s first round before a crowd of 18,738 in the PPG Paints Arena.

The 20-point margin wasn’t the best showing in Delaware’s now six-game NCAA tourney history and it was far from the worst. But what separated this contest from the others was the way the Hens competed for the opening 15 minutes.

“The finality of this always stinks,” said Delaware coach Martin Ingelsby. “(But) I’m super, super proud of our group and how we competed. We battled. We got after it.

“I thought we got off to a really, really good start in the first half and put a little scare in them.”

“We have a competitive group of guys,” said freshman Jyare Davis, who scored a team-high 17 points. “And if we were playing the Golden State Warriors, I think everybody would believe in ourselves and believe in us winning.

“So definitely going into the game we expected to win, and throughout the whole game expected to win. But we came up short.”

Still, for the Hens, their good start was fun while it lasted.

When Dylan Painter drove across the lane to score inside, the Hens owned a 15-8 advantage nine minutes into the contest.

Delaware was still in front, 23-20, when Davis scored inside with 6:02 left before intermission.

Villanova coach Jay Wright gave the Hens a lot of credit for their game plan.

“At the start of the game it took us some time to just adjust to their speed and their intelligence offensively,” he said. “We knew what they were doing, we just couldn’t guard it.

“And I thought even their defense was very intelligent, too. It took us some time to figure that out. I think our guys did. And I think that was the difference. They’re a really well-coached team.”

Finally, Villanova asserted itself in the final five minutes of the first half.

The Wildcats ended the half on a 15-2 run, hitting three three-pointers in the spree, to take a 35-25 lead into intermission.

Delaware, on the other hand, made only one of its final 10 shots in the last five minutes as the Wildcats opened up their double-digit lead.

Things didn’t get any better when Villanova opened the second half on an 11-2 run. All together, the Wildcats made eight of their first 10 shots in the second half, including four threes.

When the dust settled, Villanova held a 57-37 advantage with 14:17 remaining.

“We were battling on the defensive end and limiting them to one shot,” said Ingelsby. “And then that last two or three minutes of the first half, into the start of second half, they were able to get separation.

“Then they can swallow you up on the defensive end with their positional size and physicality.”

For the game, the Wildcats were 13-of-28 from beyond the arc. That’s more than the 12 total three-pointers Delaware gave up in three CAA tourney games.

The Wildcats’ advantage went as high as 23 and shrunk to as little as 16 before settling at 20.

“Whenever you make a mistake, they capitalize on it,” said Anderson. “And we kept saying that. Playing against them, you’ve got to be close to perfect on defense because as soon as you make a mistake, they’re going to see it and take advantage of it.”

“They’re a really talented basketball team,” said Ingelsby. “I think they played really well, they shot the ball well, and they made 13 threes. I think that was the difference in the game.”

The fact that the Hens made just 3-of-20 threes didn’t help their cause.

“I think that was an area ... against a team like that, you’re going to have to be able to make a couple threes,” said Ingelsby. “I thought we had some good looks.”

Besides Davis, who was 7-of-10 from the floor, Andrew Carr added 13 points after hitting all five of his shots. Anderson added nine points with Jameer Nelson Jr. adding eight.

Justin Moore netted a team-high 21 points for Villanova as five Wildcats scored in double figures.

The Hens, of course, wish they could have kept the game competitive longer.

But Ingelsby thought that had more to do with Villanova’s talent than Delaware’s effort.

“I mean, they were ready to compete,” he said. “This group became very confident coming off all we did in D.C. (in the CAA tourney), and they really believe that they could compete on a big stage against Villanova.

“Again, the finality of this is really hard, but I couldn’t be more proud of our group for how they competed, how they dug in, and they never gave up for 40 minutes. They left it all out there.”

Follow Andy Walter on Twitter @DSNSports.