(1916–17, 1918–19), and one consensus retroactive national championship for the 1918–19 season, but the team was never the consistent winner that it was in the first decade under Cooke. He retired after the 1923–1924 season. His successor, Harold Taylor, was Cooke's assistant coach in his final season and had previously a successful high school coach; however, he had little success with the Gophers and was fired after never finishing higher than sixth in the conference in three forgettable seasons. Dave MacMillan and beyond (1927–1959) Following the firing of Harold Taylor as coach, the program underwent a national search for a successor. Many of the candidates for the job were high-profile coaches of other conference foes. The team opted, however, to hire Dave MacMillan, who had been coaching the University of Idaho for the previous seven seasons and had previously played for the Original Celtics during the 1910s. MacMillan would dominate the program for the next 30 years, coaching the team from 1927 to 1942 and again from 1945 to 1948. MacMillan's teams in 1928 began to play in the University of Minnesota Field House, a new on-campus arena. Basketball had been off-campus for several seasons when the team moved downtown. MacMillan's teams had middling success. His 1930–31 and 1931–32 teams competed near the top of the Big Ten, but his teams dropped off again until 1936. John Kundla joined the team for the 1936–1937 season and helped the team to the Big Ten Championship, which was ended up being its last until 1972. MacMillan's squad also competed in a tournament in 1936 to represent the United States in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin; the team advanced several rounds before being ousted by DePaul. Many Gophers players in this era were recruited from Minneapolis public high schools, and in some seasons this even constituted a majority of the roster. McMillan resigned in 1942, but returned in 1945 after three poor seasons for the Gophers in the interim. When he resigned for the second time in 1948, he was replaced by O. B. Cowles. Cowles was known for playing slower tempo basketball like was most common in the 1920s and 1930s and was known as a defensive-minded coach, especially early in his career. His squads were led by two-time All-American Jim McIntyre and three-time NBA Champion Whitey Skoog for the early years of his career and Big Ten MVP Chuck Mencel