Blue Devil fans across the nation held their breath as Duke played a Ping-Pong-like match against Clemson, the score bouncing back and forth between orange and blue leads.
The clock in Littlejohn Coliseum was winding down; with 5:19 to play, the two ACC foes had knotted things at 59 each. Forty-four seconds later, Viktor Lakhin gave the home team two points with an aggressive turnaround jumper in the paint. A couple of seconds after that, Tyrese Proctor dribbled around the arc; he would not settle for a meager two points. He took the ball from one side of the 3-point line around to the other and, through a window between the double-teaming arms of Lakhin and Dillon Hunter, Proctor launched the shot. Swish. Duke had the lead back.
Of course, the Blue Devils ultimately lost the back and forth. The final minute proved critical, and Clemson took a 77-71 win over the No. 2 team in the country. The lesson is, perhaps, that this group of Blue Devils struggle when big games come down to the wire, which could be a problem come March. However, it hasn’t been one since the Kentucky loss; things rarely came down to the wire during that 16-game streak of Blue Devil bliss.
But let’s talk about Tyrese Proctor.
Saturday night, the Australian junior shone. He scored a season-high 23 points — just one off his career best — and notched two steals to make a resounding impact in Littlejohn Coliseum.
“Being confident in myself was a big thing, but obviously seeing a couple [shots] go through early gives you confidence,” Proctor said.
From start to finish, Proctor showed off. His first triple marked the first points of the contest: He passed the ball to Sion James and then booked it to the left side of the basket, where James chucked the ball back to him. Proctor locked eyes with the net and jumped in perfect form to land his first three.
A couple of minutes later, he barged through the orange paint, ostensibly ready to drive to the basket. Instead, the Sydney native turned away from Chase Hunter to pass the ball into the waiting hands of Kon Knueppel, who sunk a three of his own.
In the eighth minute, Proctor found a defensive rebound. Rather than holding onto the ball, he pushed it towards Clemson’s basket and dribbled with force, crossing up a couple of Tigers on his way to the basket. As the force of his movement threw his body past the baseline and onto the hardwood, the layup, miraculously, was good.
For the rest of the game, Proctor continued to combine deft ball handling with a knack for getting it in the net. A couple of times, he drove into the paint before putting up a layup or close-range jumper. Another handful of times, he made good on soaring shots from deep. His success appeared to be the result of a fearless playstyle, in which Proctor took shots over, or dribbled boldly around, the threatening forms of Clemson defenders like Ian Schieffelin, Lakhin and the Hunter brothers. He played the same way on the other side of the court, swiping a couple of steals from the unsuspecting hands of various Tigers and converting them into Duke points.
“Tyrese did great,” head coach Jon Scheyer said after the game. “I thought he was just a leader. I thought he was shooting. I thought just every part about him was terrific today.”
Proctor’s 23-point game came in crescendo, following 17- and 16-point games against North Carolina and Syracuse, respectively. Before then, the veteran’s season had followed a winding path, recently featuring six- and four-point performances against N.C. State and Wake Forest. He seemed to be taking a back seat to performances of fellow Blue Devil starters.
In a game like Clemson, however, not only did Proctor’s talent shine through — so did his head for the game. Faced with a defense that was quickly figuring out how to guard both the perimeter and the paint, Proctor stepped up with decision making that got the ball to the basket more times than not. Creativity matters in those moments as much as experience does. Proctor has both of those things.
“I just trust my work, and I know how I prepare for these games," Proctor said. "I've been in environments like this."
Sure, Proctor’s soaring performance didn’t save Duke from its first ACC loss. That does not take away from what it was — a relentless, energetic attack on the Tigers from Duke’s most weathered staple. What’s a positive takeaway for the Blue Devils from Saturday night? Proctor is a playmaker.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.