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- to late January, not long into the Tigers’ Southeastern Conference schedule. As those games — those losses — came and went, Grill’s wrist refused to heal as quickly as he wanted it to.
“I tried to come back and practice, and it started to feel good,” he said, “and then the next day I’d wake up and it felt so sore I couldn’t even move it.” In mid-February, coach Dennis Gates said Grill had experienced setbacks with the pain and swelling in the wrist — the sort of things that prevented doctors from clearing him for play. Range of motion and strength limitations with the joint also complicated the process.
Fans and journalists outside the program weren’t the only ones with questions about why recovery was taking so much longer than expected. “It is challenging because you’re doing all you can to get back,” Grill said. “The doctors tell you a certain amount of time, and you’re like, ‘Dang, why does it not feel right right now?’ That was just really frustrating.
’” As the season wore on, it became clearer that Grill wouldn’t likely be back that season. Appearing in more games would cost him a chance at a medical waiver for another year of eligibility, and voiding that chance to rejoin a winless team seemed, externally, like an unwise choice. It wasn’t until the end of Mizzou’s spring practices that Grill’s wrist felt normal anyway.
That this injury came so early in a season that was supposed to be a comeback in its own right — his back injury occurred on Jan. 27, 2023, when Grill played for Iowa State — felt cruel to the guard. “I was upset about it,” he said.
“I was finally back to feeling like myself and feeling healthy, so when the wrist injury went down, it felt kind of similar to the season before where I was like, ‘Am I really going to get that opportunity to play to my full potential, 100%, again?’” In his nine games of action for Missouri, Grill averaged 8.4 points and a team-high 5.8 rebounds.
He recorded a double-double in the Wichita State game, also shooting 3 for 6 from 3-point range — an indicator that he was finding his form with the Tigers. Stuck observing from the bench, Grill still tried to decipher how his game would translate to the SEC. He had to do it more imaginatively than he would have liked, but he found advantages to the situation.
“I think you learn a lot from being hurt, as a player, when you spectate practices and games,” he said. “It was my first year playing in the league. Now I see how each team plays and how they are offensively and defensively.
When you’re in the battle, in the moment, you’re really only seeing half the action.” Grill’s decision to come back one more time was far less complicated than the injury recovery proved to be. “It was pretty much a no-doubter,” Grill said.
“I wanted to actually have a full season here at Mizzou. I played nine games. I came here to help this program, help Coach Gates and the players here and elevate the program.
Only being here for nine games, I felt like my impact wouldn’t have been that. It was more than just my personal decision — it was trying to help impact others.” As one of five returning players, part of Grill’s comeback will be a revenge tour.
He didn’t get to play in the 19-game skid that ended Mizzou’s season, but he does want to avenge it. “I just want to prove, like, we’re a good basketball team,” Grill said. “Last year, we dealt with injuries.
If you take all the injuries out from last season, it’s a completely different season, no matter what anybody else thinks. I want to show people really who we are because people have — I mean, we do too — a bad taste in our mouth after how last season went.” BenFred: Beware the Bulldogs.
Arrest of Mizzou football player gives Drinkwitz chance to set tone. Drinkwitz says Mizzou's O-line competition remains 'wide open' with transfers vying for starts Blake Craig prepares to take over as Mizzou's kicker: 'Excited to be that new face' Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz speaks with the media on Sunday, July 28, 2024, before the start of preseason camp. (Video by Mizzou Network, used with permission of Mizzou Athletics).
