Dennis Gates sent a message with his lineup

Caleb Grill, a Missouri basketball team captain, was not among the starters for the second straight game.

“I benched him,” Gates said. “He was mad at me.”

Mad enough for a career-night?

You bet.

Grill answered the bell time and time and time again for the Tigers with a career-high 33-points with an 8-of-10 clip from 3-point range and a game-high nine rebounds as Missouri basketball survived a plucky comeback attempt from Eastern Washington to win 84-77 on Monday in Columbia.

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Grill's game, to some extent, came out of thin air.

He was 0-of-7 from deep on the season through two games. Grill had more turnovers (nine) than he did points (six) between Missouri’s loss to Memphis and its win over Howard on Friday. In short: Grill’s spot on the bench wasn’t exactly unearned.

But how about that for a response?

“I gotta be better for the team, and then for my teammates that were out there,” Grill said. “I just credit them for making the right play, and then I just had the opportunity tonight to make shots. It's going to be somebody else I'm going to guess on Thursday night (against Mississippi Valley State).”

Could very well be. But on Monday against Eastern Washington, it was most certainly Grill for Mizzou (2-1).

EWU started fast and, despite Grill’s gaudy numbers and some efficient offense all around from Mizzou, the Eagles just weren’t going away.

Eastern Washington (1-2) rushed out to a 12-4 lead within four minutes of the game and forced Gates into his first timeout. On the other end of the huddle, Grill checked in off the bench — where his coach had stuck him — for the first time.

Within two-and-a-half minutes, he had a 2-of-2 mark from the free throw line, a breakaway dunk and a corner 3. He finished the half with a 4-of-5 mark from 3 and 16 points as Mizzou went into the half with a 12-point lead.

And he went ahead and outdid himself in the second half, too.

Grill matched his 4-of-5 mark for eight total 3-pointers and an 80% overall clip from behind the arc. Two of those came after EWU had made it a tense affair in Mizzou Arena and cut Missouri’s once-15-point lead to two points with four minutes remaining.

He finished the game with a career-high in points, besting his 31-point showing from his time as an Iowa State Cyclone against North Carolina on Nov. 25, 2022.

Hot hands, much?

“It's just all throughout the flow (of the game),” Grill said. “You know, it's all about the offense. It's not about just chucking them. It's really just about the flow and everybody else sharing the ball. I don't think that's how we're styled to play, coming down and jacking them when we're feeling it. I think just taking the right shot is what leads us to having better possessions offensively.”

The graduate student wasn’t exactly meant to be here at this point in his career. When he transferred to the Tigers ahead of last season from Iowa State, he had one remaining year of eligibility.

But against his hometown team Wichita State on Dec. 3 last season — the last time the Tigers owned a winning streak until Monday’s win — he fell hard on his wrist. Initially he was given a timeline of 5-7 weeks for recovery. The healing process kept sustaining setbacks, and he ended up sitting out the remainder of the season.

In the spring, Gates told the Tribune that the team had applied for a medical waiver. It was granted, and a key piece of Mizzou’s offense and defense was poised to return. He was named a team captain shortly before the season began, and was in MU’s starting lineup to face Memphis.

But the start to the 2024-25 campaign wasn’t Grill’s best.

That came Monday night in a game that would have escaped Mizzou if it wasn’t for its captain.

“We hugged and made up, but I benched him,” Gates said. “Accountability is growth, and he allowed me to hold him accountable. Certain things are expected from our guys, and that shows the sign that we can go in the right direction. He didn't fight it. He accepted every bit of it. And I guarantee you, if you ask him if he wants to start now or not, he'll say he's OK.”

So, mad at Gates?

Not quite. The coach might have helped him turn a corner.

“I haven't played a game in 11 months, and I didn't really put that into accountability,” Grill said. “Coach holding me accountable is one of the main reasons why I came here, because I just think that's, like, a huge piece as a coach, and I want to be a coach one day. And his accountability factor is one way I want to see myself as a coach one day.

“So, for the way he held me accountable, if I was in his shoes, I would have done the exact same thing. I'm just learning a lot from him on the process, and I can’t thank him enough for following through for how he is a coach and doing what he did to me.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Why Missouri basketball benched Caleb Grill and how it led to career-night