Tyrese Proctor of Duke struggled with his 3-point shooting before March Madness, but now he’s on fire

Not long ago, Tyrese Proctor was having trouble making shots from beyond the arc. For almost a month, he missed shot after shot, leaving him frustrated during Duke’s run for a national title.

Now, he can’t miss.

The junior guard has been on fire with his outside shooting, making at least six 3-pointers in the past three games, dating back to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament final. This has been a big help to an offense that is already performing at a high level as the top-seeded Blue Devils prepare for their Thursday game against Arizona in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament’s East Region in Newark, New Jersey.

“The main thing is the mentality of it,” Proctor said after Duke’s win against Baylor on Sunday. “I’m just shooting knowing the ball is going to go in and not hoping it’s going in as the big thing.”

Proctor, who is 6-foot-6 and from Australia, has made 19 of 28 3-pointers (67.9%) since missing his first two attempts in the ACC title-game win over Louisville. He’s only gotten better with each game.

His first big performance came in the first round against Mount St. Mary’s, when he hit 6 out of 8 shots — a performance that could have been seen as a one-time fluke.

But then, he topped that performance two days later by making 7 out of 8 shots against Baylor.

That’s 13 out of 16 3-pointers through two March Madness games, an amazing 81.3% shooting rate. The 13 3-pointers made are the most by any player in the Sweet 16, with Houston’s LJ Cryer and Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier each hitting 10 as the only other players in double figures.

Proctor has been hitting shots in many different ways: catching in transition, curling around a screen, using a stepback move, even pump-faking a defender off his feet and resetting with a dribble to his right — a move he used three times to fake a Baylor player on Sunday.

As he kept making shots, he celebrated with triumphant gestures and screams toward the home-state crowd as he moved back to play defense.

“Such a talented player, such a weapon for us when he’s being confident looking for his shot,” said freshman star Cooper Flagg.

The Blue Devils (33-3) have always counted on Proctor as a starter with good length, which helps him create matchup problems for smaller guards on both ends of the floor. He’s been a complementary scorer behind Flagg and another freshman, Kon Knueppel, and was averaging 11.8 points per game before the Louisville game.

But with his improved shooting, his scoring average has gone up to 12.5 points per game

A few weeks ago, it was hard to predict this kind of improvement.

After a strong start in February, Proctor’s outside shooting began to slump. Over the next seven games, he missed 23 of 29 3-pointers, including two 0-for-5 performances at the start of the ACC Tournament. By the time he missed his first two shots against Louisville in the final, he had missed 14 straight 3-pointers, stretching back to missing his last two in the regular-season finale against rival North Carolina.

Proctor spent time watching film of his shooting with assistant coach Will Avery after the first two games of the ACC Tournament, trying to figure out what was going wrong.

“It’s just little things — just my balance and stuff like that,” Proctor said. “At the end of the day, it’s just confidence. As soon as my feet get set and I hold my follow-through, I’m just going to keep trusting it.

“All the 0-for, whatever it was, all that felt good. A couple of them I knew what I did wrong. I think it’s just realizing and understanding that, and just fixing it on the fly is a big thing.”

It’s a challenge that many shooters can relate to: figuring out the balance between making small adjustments and not overthinking what has worked in the past.

So far, it’s been working for Proctor.

“It’s hard, earlier this season I struggled with that,” Knueppel said. “You’ve just got to keep shooting it, that’s the only way you can make more shots, is you keep shooting them. So he’s done a great job of just being confident. He’s really attacking his catches and getting locked and loaded, and ready to go.”