Joe Wolfinger's role still a mystery with Huskies

As the Washington men's basketball team enters its first full week of practice, coach Lorenzo Romar says this team has fewer questions to be answered than any since Brandon Roy left town.

But here's an intriguing one that remains unsettled — just what is junior Joe Wolfinger, anyway? A three-point specialist buried inside a 7-foot body? Or a player capable of also taking advantage of all that height, potentially turning him into one of the team's most dangerous weapons?

At the team's media day last week, Romar seemed content to let Wolfinger be what he was a year ago, when more than half of his shots (47 of 93) were taken from beyond the three-point line.

"He may be our best shooter," said Romar of Wolfinger, who made 40.4 percent of his three-pointers, the second-best percentage on the team behind the since-departed Joel Smith. "And I just think we are missing the boat if we try to make him this power center under the basket. We need to look at what he does well."

But while Romar may be satisfied with that role for the Portland native, Wolfinger is anything but.

"I don't want to just rely on shooting threes," he said. "Because it's just not very fun."

Indeed, Wolfinger spent part of the summer working with former UCLA and NBA center Swen Nater on his inside game, trying to make that a bigger part of his arsenal.

"He taught me some good techniques," Wolfinger said. "I've been working on my post moves a lot and trying to work on my jump hooks."

If he can translate that into games, Wolfinger could be an X-factor for UW, pushing what looms as the most talented Huskies team since the Roy era to even greater heights. Romar acknowledged last week that Wolfinger is one player whose ceiling could be a lot higher than advertised.

In fact, while Romar knows some people think he's just waxing a little hyperbolic when he talks of Wolfinger, he maintained this week that Wolfinger could someday be in the NBA.

Romar became even more convinced after re-watching every Huskies game on tape during the offseason.

"It surprised even me how many good games Joe Wolfinger had," Romar said.

As evidence, Romar pointed to UW's two games in the preseason NIT when Wolfinger scored 12 points with four rebounds in 20 minutes against Texas A&M, then had seven rebounds and five points in 17 minutes against Syracuse.

"After that tournament, a couple of NBA scouts said to me that he was the best prospect on our team at that time," Romar said.

But Wolfinger struggled to stay on the floor consistently due to conditioning issues that led to problems playing defense and rebounding, and he finished with averages of just 4.2 points and 1.7 rebounds.

In fact, even getting on the floor at all had been uncertain in the summer of 2007 as Wolfinger battled chronic foot problems that forced him to miss the 2006-07 season. He was able to practice only 45 minutes a day in the preseason and ballooned to more than 280 pounds during the summer.

"It was just all about my defense, being able to move," he said. "Coming off the injury, just all the time [he missed]. I was kind of overweight and slow, and I just kind of relied on shooting threes."

But he gradually got into shape as the season wore on, which he highlighted with a pair of appetizing performances late in the season in the Bay Area, scoring 12 points in 18 minutes against Stanford's Lopez twins, each taken in the first round of the NBA draft, and 17 points in 18 minutes going against California's DeVon Hardin, who was taken in the second round.

Romar notes that Wolfinger was a late bloomer in high school who wasn't really a highlight player on his team until his senior season. Then after a year at prep school, he had a redshirt season and a missed season due to injury at UW.

"The fact that he did what he did last year was pretty impressive given his past history," Romar said. "Now he can go every day, and he has been able to condition again. He just can't help but get better."

Huskies coaches told Wolfinger after last season he needed to be quicker and more agile on the floor, so he has dropped to about 250 pounds.

"I've lost a lot of body fat and still kept my muscle," he said. "I'm finally back to where I was before I got hurt, able to use my height down low, block shots, and hopefully just get more athletic. I can't just be a 7-foot stiff guy out there. So I want to get away from being a 7-foot stiff guy."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com