NEWARK — Something had to give.

Delaware had lost 11 games in a row but William & Mary had lost its last nine meetings with the Blue Hens.

But, like just about everything else lately for the Hens, this one didn’t go their way, either.

Courtesy of Delaware Athletics/Jeff Stiehl

The Tribe buried 16 three-pointers — tying the record for a Delaware opponent — and that was too much to overcome as William & Mary posted a 94-79 victory over the Hens in a Colonial Athletic Association men’s basketball matchup at the Carpenter Center on Thursday night.

The setback stretches Delaware’s losing streak to 12 in a row, matching the second-longest skid in program history. The Hens (0-9 CAA, 5-15) are now just two losses shy of the school record of 14 straight set in 1965.

Five different players hit threes for the Tribe (6-3 CAA, 14-6), led by the trio of David Cohn (23 points), Connor Burchfield (18) and Omar Prewitt (18), who were a combined 14-for-22 from beyond the arc.

“It’s hard just to key on one person,” said junior guard Cazmon Hayes. “At any given time, any one of them is just liable to make a three. It’s difficult to guard.”

The reality was that Delaware actually played pretty well offensively.

Sophomore Kory Holden finished with a game-high 29 points while Hayes added 22. Between them, the two guards were a combined 11-for-18 from three-point range.

Holden, though, didn’t see that as much of a silver lining.

“I’ll say the bad outweighed the good today,” he said. “Yeah, our shots were falling. But, defensively, we couldn’t stop them. They were just scoring. Maybe if we could have stopped them, it would have been a closer game and we would have had a chance to win.

“But the fact that we couldn’t stop them from scoring — when we were scoring, too — the lead kept building.”

Delaware did go up by as many as four points in the first of a contest that featured nine lead changes and six ties.

After falling behind by 15 midway through the second half, the Hens closed within 66-60 on back-to-back threes from Holden with 7:53 still remaining.

But the Tribe answered with a 10-2 run, sparked by a pair of threes, and that was that.

William & Mary finished with 28 assists, the most by a CAA squad this season.

Even with Thursday’s loss, Delaware has still won 20 of the last 23 games with the Tribe. The difference this time, said coach Monte’ Ross, is that the short-handed Hens had to play zone defense.

Delaware still has only seven healthy scholarship players.

“The shame of it is, the reason we beat those guys so much is because we (usually) play them man-to-man,” said a visibly dejected Ross. “We can guard their stuff and limit their three-point shooting. In zone it’s just difficult because they have so many weapons.

“I thought our energy in the zone was pretty good in the first half. But it’s the same old thing where we just wear down. We cut it to six with eight minutes to go and we just wear down.”

“They can be stopped,” said Holden. “But we didn’t do enough to stop them. We didn’t force them to miss threes.”

Free throws

Holden has scored 20 points or more in eight games this season. ... Marvin King-Davis was limited to six points but did have a game-high 12 rebounds. ... Anthony Mosley added 11 points with seven rebounds and four assists. ... Besides 1965, Delaware’s other 12-game losing streak was in the 1929-30 season. ... The Hens begin a string of three straight road games with a 2 p.m. contest at Towson on Saturday. ... Delaware’s next home game is on Feb. 11 against Drexel.