Film Review: How Caleb Grill generates quality catch-and-shoot looks

If I had to explain the notion of shooting gravity to a stranger, I would show them clips of Caleb Grill. 

Sometimes, our mind’s eye envisions those players falling into two categories. The stationary sniper lingering in the deep corner and only occasionally relocate. Or they’re a perpetual motion machine blurring around screens to shake loose.

What makes Grill fun is how he dabbles in both genres. Despite a slightly off-target outing against Texas A&M, the sixth-year senior still paces the nation’s highest-volume shooters in efficiency. And not by a small margin, either. 

When he’s genuinely sighted-in from range, Grill, who has hit 47.2 percent of catch-and-shoot 3s, creates the kind of tradeoffs that coaching staffs loathes when putting together a scouting report. 

Why?

Because Grill’s shot volume is not dependent on Missouri coach Dennis Gates routinely making play calls to generate shots for him. Grill is so potent because those chances emerge organically within the flow of MU’s base offense. 

Earlier in non-conference play, we discussed how MU utilized away screens to create space to trigger Princeton-inspired sets. Often, Grill’s the guard receiving that screen from a big man. And his decisions afterward frequently explain how he gins up quality looks.

In the first snippet, Grill simply cuts through to the weak-side corner. Ho hum? Sure. But look at the switch. Malik Dia goes with Grill. Then, a high pick-and-roll switches poor Sean Pedulla on to Peyton Marshall. Next, Ole Miss’ defenders cheat toward the mid-line. All Tony Perkins has to do is probe the middle gap, kick the ball out and let Pierce swing it to Grill for an open corner 3. 

But the real fun starts when Grill gets involved as a screener. At Mississippi State, MU had Grill sprint into high ball screens before Josh Gray stepped up. Those secondary PNRs forced Grill’s defender to stunt toward the nail – leaving him free to sprint into jumpers via ball reversals. 

The torture can also continue if MU runs a typical delay set. Grill can exploit over-helping if that set folds in a Spain pick-and-roll. Or he can leverage a high split-cut before sprinting in a handoff. It’s also the perk of running a reads-based offense. 

At a minimum, his presence in the corner or slot, especially on the weak side of the court, can make a defender hesitate before rotating to the middle of the floor. That gives a post player room to catch and scan. It provides Perkins and Anthony Robinson wider seams to attack. It also allows Mark Mitchell to face up a defender for an elbow drive. 

That even holds true when MU doesn’t use an away screen before a delay set. 

The same diversity in Grill’s shot diet translates when the Tigers play five out. Need a corner spacer? No problem. Want to punish a team that handles switches with thru coverage? Grill can pull the ripcord in a handoff. Or, in some cases, you can use him as the screener in flat PNR looks. He’ll just peel back for a spot-up instead of rolling. 

Along the way, Gates has made subtle tweaks to other lesser-called sets to accentuate Grill’s stroke. 

Over the summer and early in non-conference play, Jacob Crews was the beneficiary of sprinting off zipper action. Now, it’s Grill. After a timeout, Gates will use box sets to create quality shots, including a guard coming off floppy action before feeding Mitchell cutting to the block via a rip screen. Instead of putting Grill in the first action, he pops out on the weak side, where he’s a spot-up threat against overloads. Gates also tweaked a standard chin set to have Grill cut back vertically over a gut screen set by a big. 

Those recalibrations have also been a necessity. Increasingly, opponents default to top-locking Grill. The tactic is why the Tigers have curbed their use of zipper action as a trigger, because Grill’s been unable to use a second screen, which is set by a big, to create a double gap and an easy entry pass. 

What’s most impressive is how Grill merges dynamism with efficiency. He was a state champ in the high jump coming out of high school, and that vertical pop explains his deep range. 

Grill’s body might slightly lean to the side in jumpers, mainly if he’s coming off left from a pin-down to the top of the arc, but his energy transfer is clean and the lines from his toes to fingertips are straight. His shot pocket remains consistent, and his release stays compact. 

Put simply, there’s enough lift and body control that Grill doesn’t have to compensate biomechanically at the top of his shot. It’s what made the shooting display in Starkville so impressive. State defenders assumed that Grill’s range stopped five feet beyond the arc – that they could give cushion, be in a position to help thwart MU’s primary, and still recover.

Grill disabused them of that notion. Repeatedly. 

Can he stay on this torrid trajectory? History suggests the answer is no. In recent seasons, shooters of his ilk tend to regress toward a common mean of 40 percent and 1.2 points per shot. But it’ll be fun to watch Grill try to defy that gravity as he creates his own for MU.