So far this season, the No. 22 Harvard men's swimming and diving team has proven that it can paste local eastern teams like Columbia and Army just as well as ever.

This weekend, the Crimson will get to prove whether it can beat the best teams in the nation.

Yesterday, the Harvard swimmers flew down to the Longhorn State to compete at the 2000 Texas Invitational, which boasts perhaps most powerful field of collegiate swimming teams that will assemble before the postseason.

Harvard, the five time-defending Eastern Champions, will be up against the pride of the Big 12, the Big 10 and the Pac-10. No. 1 Texas, No. 5 Arizona, No. 7 California, No. 9 Michigan, No. 12 Arizona State will all be competing in the weekend meet, along with five other teams.

The field reads like a list of who's-who among the swimming elite. Among the notable swimmers are nine Olympic medallists including five gold medallists--Texas' s Ian Crocker, Brendan Hannan, and Erin Phenix, as well as California's Anthony Ervin and Stanford's Misty Hyman.

The Crimson will undoubtedly earn its fair share of points against the top competition. Twelve of Harvard's members swam in the Olympic Trials this summer. The Crimson has finished respectably in the NCAAs in past three seasons: 26th in 2000, 24th in 1999, and 11th in 1998.

The two swimmers with the best chance of earning a high individual standing appear to be new freshman star John Cole and sophomore Dan Shevchik.

Cole has had no trouble thus far supplanting former Crimson editor Tim Martin '00 as Harvard's new distance king.

Cole finished 12th at the Olympic Trials this summer in the 1500-meter freestyle and has already set NCAA qualifying standards in the mile and 500 freestyle.

It's safe to say that he will face much tougher competition this weekend than in the Army-Columbia tri-meet, when he won by over half a minute in the 1000-meter freestyle.

Shevchik proved himself to be among the nation's best in his first season at Harvard last year. He placed eighth in the 200-meter backstroke and 12th in the 400-meter individual medley at NCAAs to earn All-American honors and the bulk of Harvard's scoring for the meet.

Shevchik also placed highly in the Olympic Trials this summer, making it to the finals in one event, but placing well short of a berth in Sydney. He was the bronze medalist at the 2000 Pan American games.

Distance freestylers Andrew McConnell, a sophomore, and Ben Hanley, a junior, are the other returning Crimson swimmers who qualified for NCAAs last year.

The Texas Invitational will be Harvard's only major meet in the month of December. The Crimson still has a long season ahead, as its most important meets are a long way off. The H-Y-P meet will not be until early February, and Harvard will look for its sixth straight Eastern Championship in early March.

But as for the here and the now, Harvard fans can follow the results of the meet almost as soon as they happen through www.texassports.com.