<p>The men’s swim team has 5 swimmers at nationals - 3 of which are underclassmen.</p>
<p>As for BB, while Stanford’s higher academic standards does limit the talent pool from which to recruit (as opposed to Duke), Stanford has managed to consistently get 3 star recruits with a no. of 4 or 5 stars every couple of years (Stanford currently has two 5* and two 4* recruits on its roster - the rest are 3* recruits).</p>
<p>The 'Cats, otoh, have been having trouble getting legit 3* recruits (though Carmody has slowly been making inroads with local talent).</p>
<p>While the B10 is tough, it’s not impossible for NU to make go above .500 in the conf. (which is neccessary for a NCAA bid) - the team for a few years went .500 (or close to it) in conference play with Vedran Vukusic leading th way, but the problem has been fielding more than one all-B10 caliber player at a time (if Vedran and Coble had played together - then we would be talking about something) and getting a big body to grab some rebounds (the "Cats are woefully undersized which is why they always get trounced on the boards).</p>