By Pete Van Mullem
(December 10, 2024)
In Spokane, Washington, Stephen Madison shoots a basketball. The basketball ricochets off the right side of the rim and bounces away. His next attempt hits the front of the rim, reverberates straight up, and falls through the net. A third shot floats with a perfect arc and misses the rim completely, falling right through the middle. Swish! Madison, a former collegiate and professional player who now serves as the manager of Shoot 360 Spokane, continues to shoot, scattering his aim to demonstrate how technology captures and displays data from each of his shots on a large flat-screen TV positioned above the backboard. The video display is the Splash Meter, a trademark of Shoot 360, and it’s changing how athletes practice and how coaches coach.
The impact of technology on you as a coach is significant. Nothing stays the same. You know this. You recognize you need to adapt. Yet, at times, the changes in technology seem to be happening too fast. How do you keep up? How do you develop your athlete’s skills in a technologically advanced world?
The Splash Meter
Steph Curry, undoubtedly, is one of the best shooters in NBA history. The Golden State Warrior superstar has the stat line to back it up. Currently, in his 16th NBA season, Curry’s career field goal percentage is 47.3%, 42.5% from 3-point range, and 91.0% from the free throw line. To put Curry’s incredible shooting ability in perspective, his 3800-plus career made three-pointers, and counting is first all-time and nearly 800 more than James Harden, who is also still an active player.
It’s hard to doubt Curry’s ability to shoot the basketball, and his work ethic is well-documented. Following the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where Curry starred for Gold Medal winning Team USA, Gonzaga University Men’s Basketball Coach Mark Few, an Assistant Coach for the USA Men’s National Team, shared his observation of Curry’s work ethic. “I’ve never been more impressed with somebody’s approach to their own individual workout, and he did it diligently every single day in every single practice,” said Mark Few to Colin Cowherd on The Herd Podcast. “Game shots, at game spots, at game speed – what we talk about as coaches all the time.”
Still, Curry could shoot a better percentage, and he’s motivated to do so. With access to the technology, Curry takes his training to a new level using the Splash Meter. The Splash Meter tracks and records a shooter’s attempt. The result of each shot appears on a 75-inch video screen above the backboard, providing the shooter instant visual feedback on the arc, depth, and accuracy of their shot. The Splash Meter incorporates Noah Basketball’s Pro Shooting System, which utilizes shot tracking cameras combined with machine learning and computer vision technology to capture the ball’s position 30 times/second on each shot. The NBA, WNBA, and over 200 NCAA collegiate programs use Noah’s shot-tracking technology.
For Steph Curry, it is not about simply making shots; he wants to increase his accuracy. “We’re doing swishes within swishes,” stated Brandon Payne, Curry’s personal coach, in a featured article by Ben Cohen for the Wall Street Journal on Curry’s quest for the perfect shot. A swish, a made basket where the ball never touches the rim, is an accurate shot, but there is room for error, up to five inches in either direction from the rim’s center. According to data collected by Noah Basketball, as reported in Cohen’s article, a player’s shot percentage based on the ball location from the center of the rim drops from 74% at three inches to 28% at six inches.
Perfection is a matter of inches. Inches the shooter can’t see when they follow their shot to the rim, but inches they can see displayed on the Splash Meter above the backboard. For Curry chasing the perfect shot or for anyone wanting to improve their shooting percentage, the most accurate shots fall within the Splash Zone.
The Splash Zone
A shot tracked by Noah Basketball’s technology at a Shoot 360 location, in a collegiate program, or by the WNBA or NBA provides a data point. Each measured shot builds the case for where a shot needs to land to record a make. Stephen Madison keeps shooting. The numbers on the 75-inch flat-screen monitor change after each shot. He pauses when one lands in the Splash Zone, the display flashing a green font. “If your shot is in the zone, it’s a 98% success rate that you will make the shot,” states Madison.
According to the data, placing a shot in the Splash Zone is the key to improving your shooting percentage. To land a shot in the Splash Zone requires a depth (front to back of rim) of 8 to 14 inches, an arc of 43 to 47 degrees, and an accuracy of three inches right to left of the rim’s center. “The perfect shot is a 45-degree arc as it enters the basket. It’s 11 inches behind the front of the rim, and it’s straight on. We call it 45, 11, and zero,” states Craig Moody, the founder and president of Shoot 360, when interviewed on the Emerging Franchise Brands Podcast in 2023. “That’s backed by science and math, and now we have over 300 million shots in our facilities to back that up, and Noah has probably the same amount. So, between the two of us, there are probably 600 million shots, and that’s growing exponentially. What we learned in the process is that there’s a range inside what we call the perfect or ideal shot.”
A former collegiate basketball player and head collegiate coach, Moody developed the idea for Shoot 360 when he noticed his son and his friends were more interested in video games than shooting hoops in the driveway. Moody thought if he combined the gaming culture with skill development, he would have the business model, and he started the company. Moody’s vision became a reality in 2012 with the opening of Shoot 360 in Beaverton, Oregon. Today, Shoot 360 is a franchise with 49 open locations worldwide, with the goal to have hundreds of locations open by 2030. Each locale influences how athletes develop their basketball skills and how coaches coach. Moody never strayed far from the basketball court following his collegiate playing days, and he stayed in close contact with his college roommate and teammate at Columbia Christian College (OR), Brad Barbarick.
Old Friends
Brad Barbarick practiced shooting the basketball as many kids did during the 1970s. He adjusted his shot according to the result. If the ball fell flat, he changed his arc. When the ball dropped short of the rim, he bent his knees for more power. Make or miss, he chased after the ball. To track his progress, Barbarick counted the result of each shot in his head. His practice paid off. Barbarick earned a scholarship and landed a roster spot on the men’s basketball team at Columbia Christian College (OR) in 1983.
He later transitioned from playing to coaching, eventually rising to head men’s basketball coach at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. In 25 seasons, Barbarick led the Cavaliers to 375 wins. Early in his coaching career, Barbarick learned to teach individual basketball skills as a camp counselor, coach, and assistant camp director at the John Wooden Basketball Camps. Coach Wooden, a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame player and coach, led the UCLA Bruins to 10 National Championships from 1964 to 1975. After he retired in 1975, he operated the John Wooden Summer Basketball Camps for 21 years in Southern California.
Wooden approached his role as a teacher of basketball. Coaches and academics who studied his methods consider him a master teacher. Coach Wooden made two statements about learning related to repetitive practice: “The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to learning.” And “I’ve created eight laws of learning, namely explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and repetition.” Barbarick, like many coaches, implemented Coach Wooden’s approach to repetition in practice. “You have to be able to master the fundamentals,” stated Barbarick. “I used the Wooden Line Drills. We did them every day in practice when I first started coaching.”
The Wooden Line Drills incorporate fundamental basketball skills, including footwork, pivoting, dribbling, and passing. Over the years, Barbarick adapted as a coach. He still taught the Wooden Line Drills and included them in his practices, but he started to change the amount of time he spent on individual skill development drills. “I was probably a much better skill, drill coach and not a great game preparation coach. What I learned is that practices have to simulate what happens in a game,” stated Barbarick. “The last five years as a head coach, we scrimmaged a whole lot more.”
Barbarick and Moody continued to share court time after college. In 1991, they started Rip City Hoops, an individual skills instruction basketball camp that would serve the greater Portland area for 27 years. They also competed against each other as head coaches. Moody led their alma mater, the Cascade College (formerly Columbia Christian College) Thunderbirds men’s basketball program from 2000 to 2003. They split in head-to-head competition, two wins apiece – maybe the old friends planned it that way.
Moody left coaching in 2003, but he stayed involved in Rip City Hoops. Barbarick stepped down as head basketball coach at Concordia University in 2019 and landed a role as the athletic director at Portland Community College. Barbarick transitioned from coaching to administration, but the teacher in him missed the game. “I enjoy mentoring coaches as an athletic director, but I missed leading a college team – teaching basketball,” stated Barbarick. “I looked into some openings, but recruiting is a young man’s game, and I was not sure I wanted that lifestyle anymore.”
In March 2022, Moody presented Barbarick with an offer to join Shoot 360 full-time. Barbarick’s career began learning from a master teacher. He continued to develop his coaching skills and grow with the game. Today, he’s riding the next wave of skill development with his old friend. Moody and Barbarick, two teachers, united once again, each with a history of influencing athletes and coaches, each adapting to a future that is changing fast. This is a future happening now, where technological advances are transforming how athletes develop individual skills.
Shoot 360
Shoot 360 is a basketball training facility that uses technology to put skill development, centered around shooting, passing, and ball-handling, in the hands of the athlete. A typical Shoot 360 experience involves a training session of 30 minutes on the Skills Court and then 30 minutes on the Shooting Court. The Skills Court is an immersive, gamified experience that challenges an athlete’s ball-handling and passing skills. For ball-handling, the athlete stands before a large screen and mimics the actions of a virtual trainer, guiding them through a dribbling workout. The ball-handling workouts are high-repetition and last approximately five minutes. The passing workouts focus on accuracy, speed, and reaction time. There are multiple workouts and games at the Skills Court, combining a dribble move with a pass to build the athlete’s game-like skills.
Barbarick gets excited explaining one of the passing games. “We have an interactive game called Quickfire that is played on our skill courts. It is a game that develops and improves reaction time and passing accuracy and truly accelerates passing skill development. It is fun and challenging, and the really enjoyable aspect is that it is like an interactive video game where you can compete against other athletes at any Shoot 360 location,” shares Barbarick. “It becomes increasingly harder as the game progresses as Quickfire simulates game-like decisions and challenges the athlete to make the right decision and maximize their points accumulated in the game by hitting the varied point targets straight on. It’s very applicable to this generation, and it is fun. Kids love it.”
While the athletes complete a workout or game on the Skills Court, Shoot 360 uses cameras to track the ball. “When it hits the screen, we can look back to when the ball was thrown and when the target appeared,” states Moody on the Emerging Franchise Brands Podcast. “We can measure accuracy because we know right where they hit the target. We can measure how fast the ball is going because we know when they release it. We can measure decision-making because we can put variable points on the board, and they choose the highest one.”
The Shooting Court is high repetition; an athlete can shoot 300-400 shots in 30 minutes. They select from a series of workouts and shooting game challenges named for the type of experience, like free throw streak, beat the pro, and three-point challenge. ARMS (Automatic Rebound Machines) facilitate the workouts. ARMS is a term used by Shoot 360 employees to describe The Gun. The Gun is a product of Shoot-A-Way, a company that began developing automatic ball retrieval machines in the early 1980s to eliminate the need to retrieve one’s ball after a shot or have a second person rebound; their apparatus would catch a make-and-a-miss in a large square net that funneled the balls down a long ball rack, back to the shooter. While an athlete could dramatically increase their number of repetitions using a Shoot-A-Way, the early machines limited movement between shots as the apparatus required a person to manually move the rack to different spots on the court. Over time, Shoot-A-Way evolved, and in 1999, they replaced the ball return racks with The Gun. The Gun still collects the balls in a large net but passes the ball back to the shooter at pre-programmed spots with high repetition, allowing the shooter to move between shots and better mimic game-like conditions.
Thus, during their shooting workout at Shoot 360, an athlete receives a pass from The Gun. They shoot, and cameras track each shot. Then, they view the result via the Splash Meter on the 75-inch video display above the backboard. “For shooting, we are watching the arc entry as it goes in, and we’re measuring that based on an axis and then the left, right, and the depth,” states Moody on the Emerging Franchise Brands Podcast. “We give players immediate feedback to get better.”
After they complete a training unit, the athlete can access all their data from the Skills Court and the Shooting Court, which includes a breakdown of every shot they took. The training experience at Shoot 360 is self-directed but includes interaction with coaches and the Shoot 360 staff. “We want every athlete, when they leave, to say, ‘I got better today,’” stated Barbarick. “The franchise standard is a minimum of two touchpoints per session by a coach. This can be a skill hint or a source of motivation.”
Shoot 360 includes common elements found with any private athletic training facility; athletes schedule sessions with a coach, and if the facility includes a full court, teams can run a full practice. Yet, what separates Shoot 360 is their technology. “We can provide opportunities to show you how quickly you can improve your skill – that real-time feedback that’s just something you really can’t get anywhere else,” states Barbarick. “Nobody else can do what we do because of the technology we have, that is what really sets us apart.”
All members manage their experience through the Shoot 360 App, which allows them to schedule a session, track their progress, and compete against athletes around the world. Training at Shoot 360 is a unique experience for athletes because you are training and using technology like the pros. “The NBA and college teams have Noah (Basketball) technology already – but Noah is a system that you go to the computer and see the data. But we have this,” says Madison, pointing to the screen (the Splash Meter). “The screen part is Shoot 360.”
Former professional basketball players own and operate numerous Shoot 360 locations, like Rodney Stuckey, a 10-year NBA veteran who owns the Kirkland, Washington location. While they have the financial means to front the cost for a franchise, many, like Stuckey, see Shoot 360 as an opportunity to give back to the game they love, and they believe in the concept. “It’s just a fun environment, it’s exciting, and people love this place,” stated Stuckey in a 2020 interview with King 5 News in Seattle. “Also, when they’re here, they’re getting better. Just seeing that makes me happy.”
“It’s going to help a lot of kids chase their dreams,” shared Dan Dickau to Virginia Thomas of the Journal of Business, “It’s going to help a lot of people learn to love the game even more than they do already.”
Dickau, a basketball legend in Spokane, starred for Gonzaga University, earning first-team All-American honors in 2002, before embarking on a six-year career in the NBA. He opened Shoot 360 Spokane in 2021 and hired Stephen Madison to help manage the day-to-day operations and serve as a coach, training the athletes. At Shoot 360 Spokane, membership fills with middle school and high school-age athletes. However, college-level athletes, either competing for local colleges or visiting home while competing for a college somewhere else, will seek out a workout at Shoot 360. They want to benefit from the technology and often with the assistance of a coach like Madison. For Madison or any coach, how do advancements in technology at private training facilities, like Shoot 360, change your role as a coach in developing athlete skills?
Adapting Your Role as a Coach
Moody turned his experiences in the sport he loves and his entrepreneurial spirit into a business that matches what he values. Yet, Shoot 360 is not the only business that caters to technological advances in training athletes. Driveline Baseball trains athletes, from youth to the pros, with motion capture technology, using sensors to analyze pitching mechanics and bat swing. The data collected allows coaches to suggest mechanical adjustments to an athlete’s swing or pitching motion. Driveline Baseball, located in Kent, Washington, opened in 2009. Their abilities to track performance over time using performance metrics attract top Major League Baseball talent to train with Driveline Baseball in the off-season.
Individual skill development using performance technology occurs in every sport. For example, golfers hone their golf swing on simulators, wrestlers spar against computer-generated opponents using virtual reality (VR) simulation, and endurance athletes collect real-time data, such as heart rate, physical strain, and oxygen uptake, with wearable technology, like a smartwatch.
And for soccer (or fútbol) players, there is the Footbonaut. The Footbonaut is a square cage, placing the athlete in the center to react to balls shooting out at varying speeds. The balls come from various locations at fluctuating elevations. The athlete’s task is to control the ball and make the correct pass, a workout that tests their vision, reaction, and precision. The Footbonaut mimics game-like conditions and collects data to track athlete performance over time. Because the Footbonaut is expensive, ranging from 2.4 million to 3.5 million, access to a Footbonaut is limited to two locations in Germany and one in Qatar.
If the ability to track player development with technology to create data for improved performance and provide high repetition is changing how athletes, at all levels, train, do they still need you, as a coach, for individual skill development? How do you adapt your role in teaching individual sports skills? Consider the following three strategies for developing the individual skills of your athletes with the assistance of technology; each is 100% within your control. First, implement technology as a teaching tool. Second, facilitate the transfer of skill practice to competition. And third, embrace the future of skill development for a competitive edge.
Implement Technology as a Teaching Tool
For an athlete at Spokane’s Shoot 360, Madison’s 6-foot, 5-inch frame gives him instant authority as a coach. But Madison’s initial credibility as a skill development coach comes from his street cred as a collegiate and professional player. He played NCAA Division I basketball at the University of Idaho, scoring 1624 points, a feat that places him third on the program’s all-time scoring list. The Fort Wayne Mad Ants drafted Madison in the 2014 NBA Developmental League Draft, and he spent the 2015-16 basketball seasons playing for Haukar Hafnarfjordur, a professional basketball club in Iceland.
Madison’s prowess as an athlete only takes him so far, and he must be able to teach basketball skills to build his reputation as a coach. A coach can’t fake competency. When an athlete notices improvement in a skill following instruction from a coach, they start to develop confidence in the coach’s ability to teach the skill and to help them develop as an athlete. If the athlete does not improve or even declines in performance, then doubt creeps in, and they may look elsewhere for a coach who can teach them.
Your ability to develop your athletes’ skills through competent instruction is one of the essential elements you need to know how to do to serve as a coach. “Our coaches have to be quick at assessing skills and be quick in providing teaching cues,” stated Barbarick. “You have to be able to give them the right information at the right time.”
Barbarick serves as Global Franchise Sales Executive for Shoot 360, yet Moody leans heavily on Barbarick to be a coach of coaches by creating curriculum and providing guidance for Shoot 360 coaches on how to teach and work with the youth. A coach at Shoot 360, like any coach, needs to teach athletes the individual skills of their sport. The difference for a coach like Stephen Madison is access to technology.
At Shoot 360, Madison provides individual training sessions, and he instructs athletes during their workouts, following their progress in real time on the video displays. “I can watch the display (Splash Meter) and see how the athlete is doing,” states Madison. “For example, the athlete might be shooting 92% in the zone on their arc, their left-right is straight, but their depth is bad.”
The Splash Meter does not replace the value of a coach’s hands-on teaching, but it can help verify if the coach is providing proper instruction. If Madison offers instruction to improve the shooter’s depth deficiencies and the athlete improves their depth score on the Splash Meter, then the athlete and Madison get feedback on the value of his instruction. Madison can recall many examples, and one in particular, where an athlete benefited from high-repetition workouts accompanied by the assistance of a coach. “We had a girl, an 8th grader. She had some super shot issues,” recalls Madison. “In three weeks, she got to perfect form.”
The Splash Meter is a tool that provides athletes with instant feedback while engaged in highly repetitive shooting practice. The data validates where the athlete is right now in terms of their ability to execute the skill of shooting a basketball. For the basketball coach, the Splash Meter measures your ability to provide effective instruction, a tool to teach the skill of shooting. The data holds the coach to a higher standard. Regardless of your sport, there are technological tools to assist you in teaching individual skills. While technological advances will continue to change how you teach skills, how do you ensure that your athletes will transfer individual skills to the playing field?
Facilitate the Transfer of Skill Practice to Competition
As a coach, you know your athletes need repetition to improve their skills. So, you plan practice time for skill repetition. You make sure the session is efficient and productive to get the most reps in the shortest amount of time. But regardless of how many reps your athletes get, it is never enough, they need more. “In a typical basketball practice, the average player may get 30 to 40 shots,” said Barbarick. “We (Shoot 360) can provide repetition in 30 minutes equal to what you can do in an entire week.”
From a practical standpoint, Barbarick sees how Shoot 360 encourages athletes to put in individual skill work on their own time while freeing up practice time for the coach to build a competitive team. Still, the evolution of technology in individual player development leaves the coach with a dilemma: how does highly repetitive, individual skill work transfer to game-like conditions?
When Craig Moody shared his Shoot 360 concept with legendary basketball coach George Raveling, the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame member, the elder, best known as a basketball purest and a protector of the game, kept his message focused on what would benefit youth. “He (Raveling) said, ‘Whatever you do, make sure it transfers onto the court. So, you are thinking about the kids and how it is valuable to them,” stated Moody on the Emerging Franchise Brands Podcast. “He was sharing with me, as a basketball person and as a coach and teacher, how can we assure that what we are giving the kids transfers onto the courts.”
A skill training facility like Shoot 360 faces limitations in helping athletes transfer their skill work to competition. “We had kids that would come into Shoot 360 and shoot the lights out. Then go to their school, and as soon as you put a defender on them, they have a tough time,” shared Barbarick on the Championship Vision Podcast when discussing how Shoot 360 is evolving to improve the transfer of skills to live action on the court.
The workouts at Shoot 360 focus on repetitive practice or constant practice. Constant practice is performing the correct technique of a skill over and over. For example, an athlete at Shoot 360 is practicing their shooting technique at a high rate of repetition using the ARMS while tracking their performance using the Splash Meter. This type of constant practice is effective in skill development and the development of self-confidence but has limits transferring to competition. To improve the transfer of individual skills, the athlete requires activities that focus on varied practice. Varied practice is performing a skill over and over but changing movement factors between repetitions. For example, increasing the speed of movement or decreasing the duration of the movement. Including different movement factors while performing the skill helps the athlete adapt the skill to competitive settings.
Moody, Barbarick, and the leadership team at Shoot 360 are aware of the importance of varied practice, and Shoot 360 incorporates varied practice into workouts. For example, the ARMS spit the ball out at various locations on the court, forcing the athlete to move between shots. In addition, the athlete can incorporate shooting off the dribble from different spots on the court. When completing the 30 minutes of ball-handling and passing, an athlete can progress from the constant practice of mimicking the virtual trainer to varied practice by incorporating a pre-programmed, dribbling-passing game, like the Quickfire game, that challenges them to follow the action on the screen.
The high-rep workout at Shoot 360, with a mix of constant and varied practice, is a confidence builder. “You spend an hour on very intense repetitions, and you got a great sweat,” states Barbarick. “Then you think I was productive today – I got better today.”
Yet, as a coach, you might question, is this enough? “All of this will get you to a certain point, but if you want to be really good, you are going to have to do more,” states Madison. “Ball-handling 30 minutes, shooting 30 minutes, that’s minimum – you got to do more than that. You got to do the attack moves, the finishing with contact, shooting off a move, and conditioning.”
You recognize the value of private training facilities that teach and develop individual skills, and you understand a facility’s limitations in helping the athlete transfer their skills to competition. You also recognize your limitations in providing enough repetition for individual skill work during team practices. How can you facilitate the transfer of individual skills to competition for your athletes?
First, recognize where your athletes can receive individual skill development outside your influence and help them acquire access to the training and instruction offered by the third party. In other words, handover the repetitions to training programs and facilities with the means and technology to provide athletes with skill development. You don’t abandon teaching the fundamental skills of sport. Instead, you shift your focus to facilitating the transfer of individual skills from practice to competition, using interleaved practice.
Interleaved practice is manipulating the sequence of practicing different skills to increase retention of the skill and transfer to competition. For example, instead of having athletes shoot ten consecutive free throws, a basketball coach might intersperse two free throws between a movement drill that incorporates dribbling, passing, and finishing at the basket. In this example, the skill of shooting interleaves with the skills of passing, dribbling, and finishing. A scenario that mimics what happens in a basketball game. Because the individual skills intertwine within the movement drill and between the drills, there is an increased opportunity for skills to transfer from practice to competition.
For detailed strategies on how to apply the concepts of transfer to competition, consider the book From Practice to Competition: A Coach’s Guide for Designing Training Sessions to Improve the Transfer of Learning.
You have always needed to facilitate the transfer of individual skills from practice to competition to help athletes perform at a higher level. But as athletes continue to practice skills using high repetition, aided by technology, your role in facilitating the transfer will take on a greater significance to maintain a competitive edge. And you will need to embrace this future of skill development to stay in the game.
Embrace the Future for a Competitive Edge
Stephen Madison’s relationship with Barbarick and Moody goes back to Rip City Hoops and Concordia University. Madison’s father played collegiate basketball and later worked in the foundation office at Concordia. Barbarick remembers Madison hoisting shots in the Cavalier gymnasium as a youth. Madison later worked a few summers with Barbarick and Moody at the Rip City Camps. Today, all three represent Shoot 360, and all three recognize the impact technology, like the Splash Meter, has on individual player development. They have experienced the evolution up close as a former elite player, an accomplished collegiate coach, and a savvy business owner. They believe in the Shoot 360 tagline: The future of basketball is here.
“If you come in and I watch your whole workout and I know, hey, you took these many shots going left off the dribble, you took this many, you know, floaters – then I can classify the shots in the computer. We’ll know if you are weak going left off the dribble. We can give you the program to fix going left off the dribble,” states Moody on the Emerging Franchise Brands Podcast. “Just think about what that does for a player that starts with us at nine years old, right? They’re just going to come on the court and crush people – just from pure skill.”
Tracking the data has obvious implications for individual skill development. “Steph Curry uses the Splash Meter to improve his makes. He will get in and shoot 300 to 400 shots in 30 minutes, and his arc does not deviate more than 1 degree. Forty-five degrees is where he is at almost 80 to 90% of the time. He might shoot one that is 44, and he might shoot one that is 46, but he is never more than one degree off,” states Barbarick. “It’s revolutionizing how young people are getting better at the game. The dynamics of skill acquisition – we are making it unique and fun.”
Nothing is slowing down the technology, and more is coming. Cameras that now track the ball will focus on the shooter, tracking their shooting form on each shot and providing data on how elbow placement impacts shooting accuracy. Future technology will allow Shoot 360 to control an athlete’s skill progression, where a new workout unlocks only when the prescribed previous workout is complete. And the ability to track work ethic might be next. “They are trying to have sensors to record how hard you are going,” states Madison. “They will be able to judge your pace and get AI to track how fast the ball is going.”
There is an old adage in sport, “If you are not practicing, somewhere, someone is, and when you meet them, they will beat you.” The reality is if you are not implementing technology in the teaching of individual skill development, another coach is, and when you compete against them, you are at a competitive disadvantage.
The options to implement technology are endless. You have access to real-time video during competition and practice. You and your athletes receive feedback on their performance through well-known Apps like Game Changer and Hudl. There is also wearable tech, like smartwatches, fitness trackers, and wireless motion sensors. You know you need to embrace how technology is changing individual skill development. But where do you start?
Unfortunately, the answer varies. What is best for the athletes you lead relates to the sport and setting you work in. However, there are a few steps you can take. First, learn about sport-specific training facilities in your geographic area equipped with the latest technology. Do they provide the skill training for your sport? Are you comfortable transferring individual skill development (or a portion of the development) to the facility to allow for more practice time with your team, where you can focus on transferring skills from practice to competition?
Second, compare the cost per athlete with other options for skill development. “The average cost of a monthly membership at Shoot 360 is currently about $138/month, depending on location,” states Barbarick. “Compare that to what a personal skills trainer. often charges, which can range from $50 to $100 an hour.” The cost of an automatic rebounding machine in basketball, like The Gun, can run from $2,000 to over $10,000. One approach for the coach is to ask the facility owners about discounted rates for teams or, instead of using fundraising dollars towards training equipment, use the money to pay for annual membership to a training facility.
Third, be open to new opportunities and new advancements in the sport you coach. If there is not a training facility in your area, learn about the technology available in your sport that measures performance, like Apps, wearable tech, or training equipment. You do not need to become a technology expert to be effective as a coach. Yet, advancements in technology will increase your effectiveness, as the feedback available to you will improve your ability to provide instruction – giving you a competitive edge.
Moody, forever thinking like a coach, sums up the reality of being a coach and what Shoot 360 can do for coaches in taking an athlete’s skills to an advanced level. “All coaches and as good as we all probably are, in the way we develop programs, and are innovative, and are unique about how we view the game – we all still need good players to win games,” states Moody when interviewed on the Championship Vision Podcast. “What I try to tell people (coaches) is look, we (Shoot 360) are going to be able to help you bring better players onto the floor.”
In Sum
Traditional principles still apply in sport skill development. To get better at a skill requires repetition and proper instruction from a coach. Thus, your ability to develop athletes is essential to your longevity as a coach. This will never change. While you cannot control what technological advancements are coming next, you can embrace the changes by using technology as a teaching tool while continuing to facilitate the transfer of individual skill development to competition.
Author Notes
This article is part of the Stay in the Game Project – Where your coaching career is the story. A forthcoming book (not of the same title) to remind you why you keep coaching, when it might be the right time to leave, and how to stay in the game. The Stay in the Game Project examines how coaches achieve longevity and what support they need along the way. As a coach, discover strategies to develop athletes, gain support, and help you learn how to win. As an administrator, learn how you can support and develop coaches. Packed with practical examples and stories from those doing the work. Subscribe (FREE) to follow the project and the upcoming book at https://stayinthegameproject.substack.com/
All photos taken by the author unless otherwise indicated.
Sources Used
Blogs
FiveThirtyEight: What Happens When Kids Have Access To NBA-Level Technology?
Seattle Met: The World’s Most Cutting-Edge Baseball Laboratory
Books
Camp with Coach Wooden by Greg Hayes
From Practice to Competition by Gibson Darden & Sandra Wilson
Record Book: Idaho Men’s Basketball
Journals
Sports Business Journal: Shoot and Deliver
The Sport Psychologist: What a Coach Can Teach a Teacher
Journal of Business: Gonzaga legend Dan Dickau Bring Shoot 360 to Spokane
Media
ESPN: NBA Player Stats
ESPN (Bundesliga): Footbonaut: The futuristic pass-master machine
KING 5 News: Basketball goes high-tech at a new facility in Kirkland
ON SI: Angel Pitcher has been Working Out at Driveline this offseason
Wall Street Journal: Stephen Curry’s Scientific Quest for the Perfect Shot
Podcasts
Championship Vision Podcast: Craig Moody & Brad Barbarick (March 28, 2022)
Emerging Franchise Brands: Craig Moody (December 1, 2023)
The Herd Podcast: Mark Few (August 13, 2024)
ThriveMore with Roger Martin – Business, Health, & Wealth: Craig Moody (January 8, 2024)
Websites
NBA: NBA Advanced Stats, Steph Curry, & 2014 D League
Noah Basketball
Shoot 360
Shoot-A-Way
StatAthlon
The Official Website of John Wooden
For detailed source list, contact pheamerica20@gmail.com
