Dan Dickau brings innovative training model to basketball-rich Spokane with brand new Shoot 360 facility

Dan Dickau’s latest project sits on 12,000 square feet of land in north Spokane. From the outside, it looks like a freshly renovated warehouse, but step inside the double doors and one will stumble on a jump shooter’s haven, outfitted with interactive television screens, motion-tracking cameras and state-of-the art “shooting guns” that guarantee a unique and innovative training experience.

Starting today, it’ll be an experience players of all ages and skill levels can have as Dickau officially launches the newest Shoot 360 location, at East Francis Avenue near the intersection of Freya Street. The north Spokane facility is the 18th opened by Shoot 360, which has locations in 12 states and will soon expand its reach internationally.

“This is like a kid in a candy store,” said Dickau, the former Gonzaga All-American who played 10 professional seasons, including eight in the NBA. “I came in the other night and shot. I hadn’t shot that much in years. My shoulder was sore all over the next morning. I was like, ‘All right, maybe I do need to shoot.’ ”

It’s hard to resist seeing all the facility has to offer.

In essence, Shoot 360 is an interactive, analytics-driven basketball experience guided by human coaches to help players refine their shooting, dribbling and passing. Members will be able to sign up for an annual membership, a three-month membership or on a month-to-month basis. While it’s designed for a younger audience, Shoot 360 also carries a Top Golf-like appeal, with various games, challenges and shooting leagues that have made it a popular attraction for older crowds.

“My son and I have come at 11 at night a couple nights this week. I might get back in shape, I don’t know,” Dickau said. “I think it’s something where, yeah, it’s going to be great to see kids fifth (grade) through high school. That’s kind of the wheelhouse. But I know at some of the locations they have, they have 75-year-olds who are members that come to shoot. They can’t play full-court anymore, but they love the game and they can come get some shots up and just kind of enjoy it.”

The newest Shoot 360 franchise brings a unique, technology-driven training model to a town that’s always had a deep-rooted appreciation for the game – through the summer Hoopfest tournament and the unlikely rise of Gonzaga basketball under Mark Few – but lacked a facility with the same motion-tracking cameras and machines used by college programs and the NBA.

“Basketball is Spokane, so this is perfect and I imagine in the future there will probably be another one out here,” said former University of Idaho standout Stephen Madison, one of eight or nine coaches who’ve signed on to work with Shoot 360. “I can’t imagine this thing not being successful and just packed with kids.”

Upon entering the facility, visitors will notice a row of “skills stations.” Each of the five fenced-off stations features four television panels covered by bulletproof glass, allowing members to fire basketballs at targets from a variety of distances. Machine vision cameras attached to each station measure the speed and cadence of a player’s dribble, along with the force and accuracy of a pass. Touch computer screens give participants more than 200 ball-handling and passing drills from which to choose.

“We like to say it’s your daily vitamins because someone walks in, they want to shoot first,” Dickau said. “That’s just natural, but to be a true, total, all-around player you’ve got to do the footwork, you’ve got to do the ball-handling, you’ve got to do the passing every single day, so we call that just taking your vitamins every single day, making sure you’re doing this.

“Say you come every day for a month, you’re not going to have the exact same workout every time.”

On the opposite wall are five hoops, each equipped with television monitors along with shooting “guns” and motion-tracking cameras that hover above the basket. Cameras track the three most important factors of the Shoot 360 philosophy – arc, depth and left/right – in order to measure the overall quality of a shot. They’re also able to record where on the floor a shot is taken.

Similar to the skills stations, the shooting machines come with programmed workouts, competitions and games that are linked to a national network, allowing players to compete with Shoot 360 members across the country.

“This is just such a big advantage that this whole generation has that my generation didn’t have any of this stuff,” said Kevin Crosno, a former Whitworth player and Gonzaga MBA student who was hired by Dickau to be the general manager of Shoot 360 Spokane. “So it’s just an amazing opportunity for kids to come in here and learn the right way to shoot, have fun doing it and just be in a culture of encouragement that we’re going to provide here.”

The facility also includes a 74x50 basketball court that Dickau will eventually rent out to youth teams.

“My son’s third-grade team is coming … for final walk-through training with coaches, so it’s kind of like a soft opening to get a chance to iron out some kinks and some nervousness,” Dickau said. “It turned out even better than I was expecting. … The only thing, the wrong color scoreboard was delivered. So we’ll get the correct black or red one up.”

Crosno said he’s already adjusted his shot based on feedback from Shoot 360 analytics.

“I actually learned I shoot kind of flat,” he said. “I kind of knew that before, but now I see the stats and it’s like, ‘Yep, I do this.’ So just focusing, I’ve got a shoot a little higher now.”

Madison, a former All-Western Athletic Conference forward at Idaho who played professionally in the G League and overseas, is also a Vancouver, Washington, native who played at Dickau’s high school, Prairie, before transferring to Jefferson in Portland. He’s had opportunities to work at the Vancouver location of Shoot 360 but indicated the technology has evolved since then.

“From 2013 to now it’s a lot more advanced, so there’s a lot more things you see now with this technology from when they first started,” Madison said. “So there’s still a lot to take in and understand how you can relay it to younger ages that they can understand.”

When the facility opens its doors at 1 p.m., Dickau will welcome the first of 30 potential members who’ve already preregistered. Those interested must first preregister at Shoot360.com. An employee will call to set up a new shooter evaluation, which includes a 30-minute tour of the Spokane facility along with a 30-minute shooting evaluation to determine a player’s skill level.

Dickau said members can get up to five times as many shots in a half-hour at Shoot 360 than they would at a normal high school practice.

“In a 30-minute workout, you could get upward of 350 shots or more using this and the research has been done that an average high school two-hour practice, the average player gets 60 shots,” he said. “So in 30 minutes, you can get nearly five times as many shots.”

It’s all part of a model that could thrive in a basketball hub like Spokane.

“There’s places like the Warehouse and stuff that have courts,” Crosno said, “but there’s no place that’s dedicated to training and just giving that space for kids to individually get better instead of having to go to a practice or rent out an entire court for an hour or something like that.”