‘Huge relief’: Wichita native Caleb Grill returns home to play in NCAA Tournament
To be a mother of three sons competing for basketball championships at the same time in different cities, there’s a certain level of organization that’s required.
So ahead of Selection Sunday, with her eldest son, Caleb, poised to play in the NCAA Tournament, Lena Grill created a spreadsheet full of information to quickly and efficiently book travel for her family to whatever regional the Missouri Tigers were assigned.
Whether Mizzou was headed to Providence, Rhode Island or Seattle, Washington, the cheapest airline tickets for a family of four were just a click away.
“I would say we’re pretty organized,” Lena said. “And you have to be when you’re traveling as much as we do, plus working a full-time job.”
Imagine her relief on Sunday evening when it was revealed Missouri was coming to Wichita as the No. 6 seed in the West Regional with a 6:35 p.m. Thursday game against Drake at Intrust Bank Arena.
For once, it felt nice for the preparation to be unneeded.
“We were jumping and screaming and crying,” Lena said. “Because it is a huge expense for families. Four tickets to fly to Providence was going to cost us nearly $5,000 and that didn’t include a hotel. Although it’s definitely worth it, it’s just a huge relief to not have that expense.”
The running joke in the Grill family was guessing how many miles the parents, Lena and Chris, have logged in their vehicle since basketball season began in November. So Lena, as organized as they come, went back and tallied the count: it’s more than 22,000 miles driven in the last five months.
The travel has only increased in March following their three seasons: Caleb, a senior at Missouri; Kyle, a sophomore at Fort Hays State; and Alec, a high school senior at Maize who plays for his father.
Earlier this month, Lena was in a different city every night of the week to catch a game involving a different son.
She watched Chris and Alec win for Maize on a Tuesday, traveled to Oklahoma to watch Caleb play the Sooners on a Wednesday, went up to Kansas City the next day to watch Kyle win in the MIAA tournament, came back to Wichita on a Friday to watch Maize punch its ticket to the state tournament, drove to Columbia on a Saturday for Caleb’s senior day and then went back to KC to catch Kyle help Fort Hays State win the MIAA title.
“We’ll sleep in May, I guess,” Chris joked.
It also helps when all three of the sons are standout players on good team. Alec recently helped Maize to a third-place trophy at the Class 6A state tournament, while Kyle was the second-leading scorer for a Fort Hays State team that just wrapped up a run to the NCAA Division II Tournament. In his sixth season in college, Caleb has enjoyed the best season of his career for Missouri with a career-best scoring average of 13.7 points on 47.5% shooting and 40.5% accuracy beyond the arc.
Caleb was able to catch Kyle’s championship win in Kansas City, but was playing in the SEC tournament when his younger brother and dad knocked off the No. 1 seed in the state tournament en route to a third-place finish.
“That’s the only bad thing about it,” Caleb said. “All of us couldn’t be at one place all at the same time. But it’s still so exciting to have all three of us doing really well right now.”
Now that basketball season is officially over for Chris, Alec and Kyle, the whole family will be reunited in Wichita this week to attend the Missouri games and support Caleb.
After years of driving to watch Caleb play games at Iowa State, UNLV and Missouri, the family will enjoy the 10-minute ride to downtown Wichita instead.
“It just means a lot because there’s a lot of people in my life back home who have helped me get to where I’m at,” Caleb said. “It’s really special to be able to go back to the place where I grew up and also for all of my friends and family, I’m glad there’s an opportunity for them to be able to attend a game in their backyard.”
“We were thinking maybe it was going to be a far travel, so it’s a huge relief to have them coming to Wichita,” Chris said. “It’s such a blessing to have him playing well and the team playing well. It’s just awesome that we’re going to get the chance to watch them right here in Wichita after all of the traveling that we’ve done.”
Caleb said the trust and belief from Mizzou head coach Dennis Gates and his staff have been vital to his success on the basketball court this season.
“Coach Gates is something special,” Caleb said. “I think he’s one of the hottest up-and-coming coaches in the country and to be able to play for him is something where I wish I would have had another year. I’m glad I was able to spend two years around this team and I couldn’t be more grateful to coach Gates and the rest of the coaching staff for building me up as a player and believing in me as a person.”
The Grill cheering section was already expansive for home games in Columbia.
How big will it be in Wichita with family, friends and former Maize classmates all in the same city?
“Well, our phone has not stopped blowing up,” Lena said on Sunday evening. “So I think if people can make it, they’re going to be there for him. I think he’s going to have a huge following. We’re really lucky to be surrounded with so many great friends and family who support all of our boys. So yeah, I think you’re going to see a huge showing.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 6:04 AM with the headline "‘Huge relief’: Wichita native Caleb Grill returns home to play in NCAA Tournament."
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