SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies men's basketball team suffered a tale of two halves in an 84-74 loss against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Wednesday at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

Washington dropped to 12-11 on the season and 4-8 in Big Ten competition.

In the first half, the Huskies shot 76.9% (20-for-26) from the floor, including a 75% (6-for-8) mark from 3-point range and went into halftime with a 48-41 lead.

"At the end of the day, shot the high percentage and still lost," sophomore guard Zoom Diallo said in a postgame interview. "We were trading baskets. We can shoot that high percentage but if they're hitting a high percentage, too, it's not gonna do too much. We got to get stops at the end of the day. We can't keep trading baskets."

In the second half, Washington was held to 36% from the floor (9-for-25) and shot 12.5% from beyond the arc (1-for-8).

"I personally got to be better, on behalf of the team, at getting my teammates better looks," Diallo said. "Taking care of the ball, of course, in the second half. Because those are crucial moments. We had those same looks (in the second half) but it just got to the point where we were getting those looks and weren't converting them and they were converting. At that point it gets hard and it gets up to a catch-up game."

Diallo had a near-double-double in the first half with nine points and 10 assists. He finished the game with 16 points, six rebounds, a steal and a new single-game career-high in assists (12).

The pair of Big Ten foes went tit-for-tat in the first half. The two sides tied or exchanged leads 18 times in the first 20 minutes.

The Huskies went into halftime having converted on 11 of their last 12 shots and went on an 11-3 run in the final three minutes, six seconds.

In addition to Diallo's standout performance in the first 20 minutes, Washington had three players score in double-figures in the first half.

Sophomore guard Wesley Yates III had 12 points and a rebound; freshman forward Hannes Steinbach had 10 points, five rebounds and two blocks; and sophomore forward Byrson Tucker had 10 points, a rebound and an assist.

Steinbach finished the game with a double-double of his own right. He finished with 20 points, 12 rebounds and two denials.

In the second half, the Huskies' hot streak ran cold while the Hawkeyes lived up to their name.

Iowa shot 58.3% (14-for-24) in the second half, including a 60% clip (6-for-10) from 3-point range.

The Hawkeyes were down 56-54 with 14:56 left in the game and went on a 9-0 run to go up 63-56 with 12:59 to go. Washington went more than seven minutes without a field goal conversion from 18:40 to 11:15 left in the second half.

The Huskies responded with a 6-0 run to pull back within one point. The Dawgs maintained that position and trailed 67-66 with 8:45 left in regulation. That was the closest UW got before the final buzzer.

Yates was out for most of the second half, receiving treatment for an unknown injury. He didn't return until the final minutes of the game.

"It was hard to score without him on the floor there," Washington head coach Danny Sprinkle said in a postgame interview. "He was playing with a tremendous amount of confidence and shooting the ball really well and spacing the floor differently for us."

After the Huskies pulled back within one point that final time, Iowa went on an 8-0 run to go up by nine.

The Midwest visitors extended its lead by as much as 13 points before the 10-point final.

A major difference for Washington on Wednesday was turnovers.

The Huskies gave the ball up 12 times to the Hawkeyes' four. Iowa scored 22 points off its takeaways compared to Washington's six.

"You probably give Iowa's defense credit," Sprinkle said. "That's what they do. They get in there and they rake hard and they get deflections. But I thought three or four were sloppy plays, trying to do too much. And it might even be six-and-six. I thought, even at the end, we were a little tired there. And we had some fatigue turnovers. But like I said, you got to give Iowa credit. They made the plays on those, too."

The Huskies are holding on to their NCAA Tournament hopes by a thread, if they haven't already slipped away. Washington will hope to respond in a game against the UCLA Bruins at 7 p.m. PT on Feb. 7 at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.

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