COLUMBIA, Mo. — Caleb Grill is no stranger to comebacks. He’s made one before, recovering from a back injury to continue his college basketball career.
And he’s set to do so again for Missouri, returning for one more year with the Tigers after a wrist injury cost him most of last season. The guard even came back from that injury right after it happened during a Dec. 3, 2023, game against Wichita State — a rush of adrenaline that masked a challenging road to recovery.
Grill hurt his his left (non-shooting) wrist while tumbling to the Mizzou Arena floor in that game, a play in which he tried to dunk but was aggressively fouled — hence the fall. He stayed on the court for a moment before migrating to the bench, then returning to the game and hitting a vital 3-pointer for MU in a close game. “At first, I honestly thought I sprained it,” Grill told the Post-Dispatch, sitting near the spot on the arena floor where the injury occurred.
“It didn’t really feel too bad at first. I broke my other wrist before, and that honestly hurt more than what happened right here.” In the game’s immediate aftermath , Grill told reporters that he was “feeling pretty good” and mostly just appreciated the breather that the play granted him.
But the sun rose the next day with Grill feeling significantly more pain, and he had surgery on his wrist later that week. The initial prognosis was five to seven weeks of recovery, a timetable that would have allowed Grill to return in mid.