Duke's Tyrese Proctor was wrestling with his 3-point shot before March Madness. Now he can't miss

It wasn't that long ago that Tyrese Proctor was struggling to make much of anything outside the arc. Shot after shot clanged away in a befuddling stretch of misses spanning nearly a month of the stretch run for Duke's national-title contender.

Now he can't miss.

The junior guard has been on an absolute tear with his outside shot, hitting at least six 3-pointers for the past three games going back to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament final. It's been a boost to an offense already humming at elite efficiency as the top-seeded Blue Devils head into Thursday's matchup with Arizona in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament's East Region in Newark, New Jersey.

“I think the main thing is the mentality of it," Proctor said after Sunday's second-round win against Baylor. "I'm just shooting knowing the ball is going to go in and not hoping it's going in as the big thing.”

The 6-foot-6 guard from Australia has made 19 of 28 3-pointers (67.9%) since missing his first two attempts in the ACC title-game win against Louisville. And he's only gotten hotter with each passing possession.

First came a 6-for-8 output in the first round against Mount St. Mary's — the kind of shooting display that's typically more of a one-game blip than a sustained push.

Only he topped that two days later, making 7 of 8 against the Bears.

Dialed in

That's 13 for 16 through two March Madness games, a shocking 81.3% hit rate. The 13 made 3s are the most of any player in the Sweet 16, with Houston's LJ Cryer and Tennessee's Chaz Lanier each hitting 10 as the only other players to reach double figures so far.

And Proctor is striking from a variety of ways: on the catch in transition, curling around a screen, using a stepback, even pump-faking a defender off his feet and then resetting off a single dribble to his right — a move he pulled three times to send a Baylor player flying by on Sunday.

As he kept burying the Bears, he flashed triumphant gestures and unleashed I'm-feeling-it screams toward a home-state crowd as he retreated back to the defensive end.

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

The Blue Devils (33-3) have long counted on Proctor as a starter with perimeter length, giving him the ability to create matchup problems at both ends for smaller guards. He has long been a complementary scorer behind Flagg and another freshman in Kon Knueppel, and was averaging 11.8 points entering the Louisville game.

But his kicked-up offense behind that 3-point shot through the last three games has increased his scoring average by approaching a full point (12.5).

Small repairs

It was hard to see this coming as recently as 10 days ago.

After a strong start to February, Proctor's outside shot suddenly abandoned him. Over the next seven games, he would miss 23 of 29 3-pointers, including a pair of 0-for-5 days to start the ACC Tournament. By the time he missed his first two against Louisville in the final, Proctor had missed 14 straight 3s going back to missing his last two in the regular-season finale at rival North Carolina.

Proctor spent time looking at film of his shot with assistant Will Avery after the first two games of the ACCs, trying to decipher where things were misfiring.

“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 any shooter can understand: finding a delicate balance of tweaking any deficiencies showing up in the form, yet not meddling too much with what has worked for so long.

So far it's working.

“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.”