There is generally very little intermixing between athletes and other students, especially for football and basketball but in non revenue sports as well. And I say this as someone who had friends who were student athletes in revenue and non revenue sports. I don’t think it’s anything nefarious, just has to do with the group of people you’re around. NU has well-defined cliques. “Athlete” is one.
My daughter just graduated from NU a few weeks ago. I'm an alum, so we could talk about life at NU pretty easily and I'd know what she was saying.
"Maybe 25% of the people here actually care about having a social life."
(One way to not meet student-athletes is to stay in your room and the library)
"There are a lot of students who are openly anti-sorority." (she was in a sorority)
"The university has made it impossible for fraternities to operate on campus, so a few that are left have houses off campus."
"I was talking to Brooks at a party and he said..."
"Gus and Luke showed up... Big Matt was there"
"We were playing intramural softball and Nick and Parker Strauss just happened to be walking by. The other team needed players, so they both played against us" (this is co-ed softball)
"Ty Berry is over there a lot - he's a really nice guy."
Point is, the basketball team was a part of the social scene at NU the last few years. Collins' policy allowed guys to do what they wanted, within reason. Players were on party buses doing what college guys do. The football team seemed (much) less so. Female student athletes were as much a part of the school's social fabric as they wanted to be.
Thats the impression I got based on conversations, texts and photos over the years.