ESPN Men's Basketball

Loyola Marymount senior forward Drew Viney, the West Coast Conference's second-leading scorer, had surgery Monday on a stress fracture in his left foot and is expected to miss the start of the season.

The 6-foot-8 Viney led the team in both scoring (17.2 ppg) and rebounding (6.6 rpg) in 27 games as a junior. He has had issues with his feet throughout his career. As a freshman at Oregon, Viney missed most of the season due to a stress fracture in his right foot. He also missed games last season due to calf injuries and migraines, but still managed to finish in the WCC's top 10 in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage, 3-point percentage and blocks.

Viney is out indefinitely following surgery and expected to miss at least the team's season opener at UCLA. His injury is just the latest that has hampered a Lions program looking to move up in the WCC. They tied for last place and won only two conference games last season while a whopping seven players missed games due to injury.

Viney became the third All-WCC honorable mention standout to go down with an offseason injury. Pepperdine returning leading scorer Lorne Jackson is expected to redshirt the season after tearing his right anterior cruciate ligament during a pick-up game in June. Santa Clara forward Marc Trasolini, the team's leading rebounder, tore the ACL in his left knee during the team's preseason tour of his native Vancouver and will also redshirt the season.

Robert Garrett is a freshman center at Santa Clara who goes by the nickname "Big Rob," and there's a good reason for that. On the roster, Garrett is listed at 7-feet, 255 pounds.

And when his weight threatened to sideline him from a team activity during the Broncos' recent tour of Canada, Garrett sprang into action to slim down his figure.

The team went to go ziplining, but due to regulations that required participants to weight 250 pounds or less, Garrett would not have been able to participate because he was a couple of pounds overweight.

Cue the "Chariots of Fire" music.

"I see Rob doing wind sprints outside a check-in booth," director of basketball operations Jesse Pruitt said.

"We start doing sprints and jumping jacks. He starts taking off clothes, taking off his socks."

Eventually, Garrett weighed in at 249.8 pounds and got to go ziplining and make memories with his team after all.

"I initially didn't even want to go ziplining," Garrett said. "I was actually kind of scared out of my mind."

The whole weight loss episode probably brought a smile to coach Kerry Keating, who will need more out of his young big man after top rebounder Marc Trasolini was lost for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament during the trip.

It was Keating last fall who threatened to hold leading scorer Kevin Foster out of practice if the all-conference player did not make weight.

But now Santa Clara appears to be a better-conditioned and better-prepared team after the trip to Canada. The Broncos certainly hated to see Trasolini go down, but the silver lining was that they played in three overtime games that included big shots down the stretch.

Foster, who led the nation last season in made 3-pointers, hit a turnaround 3 to beat the buzzer and send a game into overtime. Redshirt freshman Julian Clarke coming off a summer in which he played for the Canadian Under-19 team hit a 3-pointer of his own with a second left to send a game into OT. And Ray Cowels, whose playing time should increase this year, won an overtime game with a buzzer-beating 3.

Add in a little inspiration from Garrett, and it should be interesting to see if team chemistry can help overcome the significant loss of Trasolini.

Santa Clara forward Marc Trasolini will miss the upcoming season with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament, and the Broncos lost their second-leading scorer in cruel fashion.

Trasolini, a native of Vancouver, Canada, suffered the injury while playing in front of a hometown crowd during the Broncos' exhibition loss to Trinity Western University on Tuesday. The senior came down on the leg after attempting a shot within the game's first two minutes, and was sidelined for the rest of the evening.

After meeting with doctors Wednesday, the ACL tear was confirmed.

"Obviously I am really disappointed about what happened last night," Trasolini said in a statement. "But I am trying my best to stay positive, get back on track as soon as I can and do what it takes to help the team by being a leader and supporting them. All my teammates and coaches have been really supportive and I really appreciate that. I know they will be there for me and I will be there for them. It’s pretty bad it happened here on this trip, but it’s worse I can’t play this season. It hurts. It hurts a lot. But I will get better and be back next season."

Trasolini, who averaged 12.8 points and 6.1 rebounds as a junior, is Santa Clara's lone scholarship senior on a team that was riding high from its run to the CIT championship. The Broncos were to have returned their top three scorers, but now their chances in the West Coast Conference might have been dealt a significant blow.

For Trasolini to have experienced a significant injury during a trip when hundreds of his family members and friends were expected to come see him play is difficult to imagine. Santa Clara had planned its preseason tour with the idea that the program would get him a trip home, and his family hosted the team for dinner Wednesday after receiving the bad news.

"Marc has done everything, and I mean everything right, to put himself into the position to have a great senior year and for this to happen, especially considering the circumstances, is disheartening and unfortunate," coach Kerry Keating said in a statement. "Marc did an unbelievable job of preparing himself in mind and body this spring and summer after having a terrific junior season to have an even better senior season and help lead the team to new heights, which he will have do now from the sidelines while he rehabs his injury and gets ready to have that terrific season the following year.

"Any time someone like Marc, who will graduate this spring with honors and hopefully start his MBA, has that taken away, you hope that they will have a second chance on the court and fortunately he will. We are fortunate to have access to a great medical staff that will help get him back up and running properly. We look forward to supporting him and helping give him any added strength he will need to get through the surgery and rehab. I also look forward to working with him next spring to make sure he has a terrific senior year in a year. We look forward to welcoming him back next year on the court."

Santa Clara hangs a banner in the Leavey Center to honor Steve Nash, who was the man on campus the last time the Broncos consistently went to the NCAA tournament.

Coach Kerry Keating refers to another Canadian as the current "poster child" for the program he is trying to build.

Marc Trasolini, the team's leader in rebounds, blocked shots and grade-point average, is set to become the first player Keating will have guided as a head coach from recruiting until graduation.

And as the Broncos begin their preseason tour of Trasolini's native Vancouver with a game Tuesday night, the team's lone scholarship senior has hopes of leaving an NCAA tournament legacy of his own.

"It's a wide-open conference," Trasolini said. "Anything can happen.

"We're going to finish first. That's where we expect to be and where we want to be. Saying that, it's not going to be easy."

Santa Clara will be tested in the West Coast Conference, with Gonzaga having won or shared the past 11 straight regular-season titles and defending Mountain West Conference champion BYU joining the league.

"It's a challenge that's waiting for us at the end of December," Keating said. "Our goal is to win the conference."

Keating was awarded a contract extension after his fourth season as coach resulted in the Broncos winning 24 games on their way to the CIT championship. They return their top three scorers in backcourt duo Kevin Foster and Evan Roquemore along with Trasolini, who averaged 12.8 points and 6.1 rebounds.

The gangly 6-foot-9 Trasolini said he put on weight in the offseason so he can better match up with the big men in the conference and also with the hopes that he can play professionally. If the pro career doesn't work out, the finance major does carry a 3.55 grade-point average.

Trasolini's academics was the message that Keating emphasized while speaking to students at the player’s high school, where the team held its shoot-around.

Trasolini said he expected hundreds of his friends to come and support the Broncos during the team's four-game slate in the Vancouver area. Keating said the school reached out to Nash, but it's unclear whether the Phoenix Suns star will be paying the team a visit even if he is nearby practicing soccer with the Vancouver Whitecaps MLS team he co-owns.

Either way, it should be a memorable trip for Trasolini, who said he was taking on more of a leadership role and wanted to show his teammates where he was raised. Keating is hoping they're listening carefully.

"That's the model," he said.

Still can't get over Team USA's loss to Canada in hockey? Check out the video of Santa Clara sophomore forward Marc Trasolini reacting to Zach Parise's game-tying goal.

A Vancouver native, Trasolini has been rooting on Canada throughout the Olympics through his video series "'Traz Tid-Bits" and had no problem having his brief moment of despair put up on YouTube.

Trasolini got the last laugh as Canada went on to win, and now Santa Clara's leading scorer will focus on Friday's game against San Diego as the No. 7-seeded Broncos try to make a miracle run in the West Coast Conference tournament.

Coach Kerry Keating's job is safe, according to Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News, as an 11-20 Santa Clara team without seniors tries to make a miracle run in the tournament.