1 of 3 | Washington guard Zoom Diallo shoots a three-pointer the University of Utah, Dec. 29, 2025, in Seattle. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
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By
Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter
Danny Sprinkle isn’t entirely comfortable with the “Big Three” concept to describe Hannes Steinbach, Zoom Diallo and Wesley Yates III, and the impact they’ve had on the Washington men’s basketball team.
Theoretically, the UW coach believes a half-dozen Huskies can take the reins of the offense the way the trio did during Saturday’s 76-62 victory at Northwestern when they combined for 65 points.
“We have players that can get 20,” he said. “There’s games Quimari (Peterson) can get 20. There’s games Bryson Tucker can get 20. Jacob (Ognacevic) can get 20. … The constants have been, and the most consistent are Zoom, Wes and Hannes. Now it’s guys really learning how to play off that.
“Our team is starting to form a little bit, and roles are starting to form a little bit. And we finally have guys healthy and have everybody, which has been nice.”
Steinbach, who averages 16.7 points and 11.4 rebounds, has been as consistent as a metronome while shooting 53.3% percent from the field and tallying a Big Ten-leading 14 double-doubles in 19 games.
The 6-foot-10 freshman forward is one of two players with Texas Tech’s JT Toppin with six or more games of at least 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Diallo, a 6-4 sophomore guard, is enjoying a breakout season in which he’s averaging 15.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists while shooting 50.2% from the field, 32.7% on three-pointers and 88.8% on free throws.
He flirted with a triple-double Jan. 29 (12 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists) and carried UW in the final minutes at Northwestern while scoring 15 of his game-high-tying 22 points in the final 10 minutes.
“He’s the best midrange shooter in the country,” Sprinkle said. “He’s phenomenal at it, and he’s really confident.”
Meanwhile, Yates is heating up behind the arc while connecting on 11 of 17 three-pointers in the past three games.
Washington desperately needs the 6-4 redshirt sophomore guard to carry an anemic perimeter attack that ranks last in the Big Ten in three-point shooting percentage (31.8%).
Admittedly, Yates is regaining his form after breaking a bone in his right wrist Dec. 19. He underwent surgery that forced him to miss three weeks and five games.
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Before the injury, he was averaging 14.9 points in 11 games, and in six games since returning Jan. 14 he’s averaging 9.6 points.
“It’s tough coming back from injury,” Yates said in a postgame interview with the Big Ten Network after scoring 21 points and canning five 3s on Saturday. “Any injury is always tough. But having surgery on the hand and coming back in a couple of weeks, you don’t really hear that as often.
“Mentally it’s tough, more than physically. Just knowing that you’re not going to get it all back in one day and that’s really my mindset, knowing I’m not going to get it back in one day. Just every day trying to get 1% better, trying to get my hand strong and trying to find different ways to impact the game when I’m not scoring.”
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Steinbach, Diallo and Yates have started just seven games together. UW is 4-3 in those contests, including a Seattle U loss in which Yates played just 11 minutes before leaving due to injury.
“They’re connected right now,” Sprinkle said. “And we’re playing our best basketball.”
It couldn’t have come at a better time for Washington, which makes a final push for the postseason.
With another victory, the Huskies (12-10, 4-7 Big Ten) would tie their overall win total and surpass their four conference wins from last season.
The Huskies have made substantial gains in Sprinkle’s second season. But to get to where they want to go they need to beat good teams such as Iowa (16-5, 6-4), which enters Wednesday’s 8 p.m. showdown at Alaska Airlines Arena riding a four-game winning streak.
It’s not a must-win game, but it’s close considering UW is 2-7 in Quad 1 matchups and needs a quality win to bolster an otherwise mediocre résumé that’s surprisingly favorable with basketball metrics.
The Huskies are 46th in the KenPom rankings and 47th in the NET, the NCAA evaluating tool used by the Selection Committee to award NCAA tournament at-large berths.
Iowa, which is 19th in the NET, is the highest-rated team among Washington’s remaining nine games.
ESPN bracket guru Joe Lunardi predicts the top 11 Big Ten teams will make the NCAA tournament and excludes Washington, which is 12th in the league standings.
“You have to look at the big picture, but the most important thing is that we’re still improving,” Sprinkle said. “It doesn’t matter who we play. We control the stuff that we need to get better at.”
Note
The Huskies haven’t ruled out Desmond Claude returning this season after he stepped away from the team Jan. 16 to recover from an ankle sprain.“They’re still waiting to see what comes back from a medical perspective on some MRIs and X-rays,” Sprinkle said. “Hopefully we have some of that information this week.”
The 6-6 senior guard averaged 13.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists while starting nine of 12 games.
Percy Allen: pallen@seattletimes.com. Percy Allen is a sports reporter for The Seattle Times, where he writes about the University of Washington Huskies men’s and women’s basketball teams and the Seattle Storm.
