 Cooke was one of the first full-time professional coaches in all of college basketball and would remain at the program for 28 seasons.Cooke began to improve the team significantly and was responsible for shifts in the Gophers' scheduling that foreshadowed other changes to come.The team never played a YMCA team after the 1903–04 season, and beginning in 1900, began to schedule large neighboring universities that would join Minnesota in Big Ten competition.