Why Tyrese Proctor’s red-hot shooting brought tears to Duke coach Jon Scheyer’s eyes
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Of the nine Duke players who participated in the final game of last season, Tyrese Proctor is the only one still with the Blue Devils.
That day, last March 31, Proctor scored zero points, missing all nine of his shots, as N.C. State ended Duke’s season in the NCAA Tournament South Region final in Dallas.
Sunday, 51 weeks since that day, Proctor was a big reason why Duke not only stayed alive this season, it rolled into the Sweet 16 looking every bit like a team that can win a national championship.
With Proctor hitting seven 3-pointers and scoring 25 points, the No. 1 Blue Devils hammered Baylor, 89-66, at Lenovo Center. The second-round tournament win propelled Duke into an East Regional semifinal game Thursday night in Newark, New Jersey.
For Proctor, it’s the continuation of a shooting streak every player in America wishes to duplicate. The junior guard has made six or more 3-pointers in three consecutive games, going a blistering 19 of 30 over that stretch.
“I mean, it’s coming off good for me,” Proctor said.
You think?
Sunday’s performance against Baylor boosted Proctor’s 3-point shooting percentage for the season to 41.5. That’s compared to 32% in his freshman season and 35.2% last season.
That improvement, and seeing Proctor come up big in the NCAA Tournament, brought tears to Duke coach Jon Scheyer’s eyes on Sunday.
“I think it’s what I’m most proud of,” Scheyer said, “or as proud as anything, with the journey Tyrese and I have been on, because it’s harder to go through those journeys now.”
In 2022, having just taken over as head coach following Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement, Scheyer called Proctor on May 31 and convinced him to reclassify and join the Blue Devils a year ahead of schedule.
A year later, Proctor opted to stay in school and continue to hone his game rather than turn professional.
“I think from a young age I’ve never been a person to sort of jump off a ship in a sense,” Proctor said. “Just trusting myself, obviously trusting coach Scheyer and the program here. Everyone’s on a different journey, whether it’s one year, two years, three years, four years, just making sure I’m level-headed and always trying to get better every day.”
After his dud of a final game last season, he and Scheyer held deep conversations about what was needed to take his game, and Duke’s team, to the level needed to become a championship-caliber team.
“Me and Tyrese both would say his sophomore year didn’t go the way he wanted,” Scheyer said. “And that’s where it’s easy to split. I was not in a convincing mode, I think, after that season. I was just matter of fact, where I saw it for him and the opportunity. We had honest conversations like we always do. But I think the difference is for a guy in that position to take it, as opposed to making excuses or running away from it, I think that’s the special part.”
And now here Scheyer and Proctor and Duke are, two wins from the Final Four and four wins from the NCAA championship they so desperately want to win.
Cooper Flagg is the ACC player of the year, a consensus first-team all-American and the driving force behind those lofty goals and accomplishments. But Proctor is playing like the difference maker who can lift Duke past the other title contenders, like Auburn and Houston, Florida and Alabama.
“He’s on a heater right now,” Duke guard Sion James said. “It just makes offense really, really easy, because at any point, you know, if the ball gets to him, you’ve got a good shot of a shot going up and going in.”
To hammer home that point, Duke set a program record for shooting in an NCAA Tournament game Sunday, making 64.4% of its shots. That included 12 of 22 3-pointers. Proctor made 9 of 10 shots, including 7 of 8 behind the 3-point line.
“You make mistakes, they make you pay,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said, before joking. “Steph Curry was 7 for 8 today and 6 for 8 yesterday, so I don’t know if he’s transferring to NC State, but he was pretty good the last two games here.”
No one was laughing around the Duke program last April 1. That’s Proctor’s birthday, but the Blue Devils could barely stomach watching N.C. State head to the Final Four while they returned to Durham to regroup.
Sunday showed just how far they’ve come.
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Why Tyrese Proctor’s red-hot shooting brought tears to Duke coach Jon Scheyer’s eyes."
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