Tonight marks the beginning of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with the East and West Prelims—don’t say "Regionals!"—in Florida and Kansas. The top 12 individuals in each event and top eight relays from each region will qualify to the NCAA finals, and the process to narrow them down varies a little depending on the event. You can see each event’s exact process in the technical manual.

FloTrack will live-tweet both meets and interview athletes after the agony and ecstasy of attempting to keep their seasons alive.

After Prelims, the NCAA Championship concludes June 7-11 in Eugene, Oregon. Here are FloTrack’s projections for qualifiers out of the East and West.

East storylines

How many LSU men will qualify in the 200?

Only one team has ever qualified five athletes in a single event: Brigham Young, which sent five men in the decathlon in 1975. Fifteen teams have qualified four athletes in a single event.

This weekend, Louisiana State’s men have a chance to make history in Jacksonville, Florida. Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Renard Howell, Tremayne Acy, Tinashe Mutanga, and Jaron Flournoy are all ranked in the top 12 in the men’s 200m.  

Getting through the first round will be tough enough. Mitchell-Blake and Flournoy are in the same heat, as are Mutanga and Howell. But if they run to form, the Tigers could potentially send a historically large contingent to Eugene.

Who will survive the men’s 1500 bloodbath?

As Gordon and I discussed earlier, the men’s 1500m in the East Prelims will be a goddamn gauntlet. Nine in the field made it to Eugene last year: Henry Wynne (2016 NCAA indoor mile champ), Jordy Williamsz (No. 2 returner from last year’s final), Graham Crawford (No. 4 returner), Robert Domanic, Trevor Gilley, Robby Creese, Rorey Hunter, Cole Williams, and David Timlin. And those nine don’t include 800m studs Clayton Murphy and Brannon Kidder, (who are graduating from the 800m to the big-boy event), Ole Miss’s Craig Engels and Sean Tobin, Syracuse’s Adam Palamar and Joel Hubbard, or Ivy Leaguers James Randon, Garrett O’Toole, and James Gowans.

That’s 18 studs for 12 spots. Good luck.

Will Raven Saunders qualify?

This seems like a question with an obvious answer—of course the No. 3 American this year, defending NCAA outdoor champ, NCAA shot put record-holder and collegiate leader will finish in the top 12 at the NCAA prelims, you dummy. But! During Saunders’ first NCAA Championship meet in a Mississippi uniform—March’s indoor nationals—her first throw only traveled 16.59m, and she fouled her next two. That left her in 12th place, and failed to earn her three more throws.

That mark would’ve been seventh at last year’s East Prelims, so Saunders’ performance would have to be epically disastrous to not book her ticket to Oregon. But she’ll be eager to vanquish her demons from indoors.

West storylines

How will the stud freshmen perform?

Arkansas pole vaulter Alexis Weeks only lost to a collegian one time in her entire freshman season during her uncharacteristic sixth-place finish at the Texas Relays. She should cruise, especially considering vertical jumps at NCAA Prelims stop once 12 athletes are left.

Colorado’s Dani Jones’ 4:15 1500m at Stanford was one of the breakout performances of the season in a wide-open event, but she was only seventh in the Pac-12 final. All six women who beat her at Pac-12s will contest the event this weekend.

Teahna Daniels winning the 60m at indoor nationals may have been the upset of the year so far. But the Texas frosh has not won a single race outdoors, and at one point, went six weeks without competing. She’s seventh on the list in the 100m.

After a rocky start to his college track career with a 4:17 mile, Matthew Maton has been almost uniformly excellent. Most recently, he finished second in the Pac-12 1500m final with his first sub-3:40 performance, which made him one of only two men in the West under 3:40 this year.

The men’s 400m is coursing with young blood. A third of the top 12 seeds--Missouri’s Kahmari Montgomery, Baylor’s Wil London, Iowa’s Mar’yea Harris, and Southern Illinois’s Warren Hazel--are freshmen. Montgomery has been one of the biggest surprise stars of this track season.

​Watch London get physical after the 400m at the Michael Johnson Invitational:



How will the big doubles go?

Distance doubling at NCAA Prelims—where it’s almost always brutally hot and this weekend looks to be no exception—is a minefield. Remember when Jordan Hasay—at the time, a double NCAA champion and multiple-time All-American—failed to advance in the 10K in 2013?

Big-name distance runners attempting tough doubles this year include Dominique Scott (10K/5K), Erin Clark (steeple/5K), Brenna Peloquin (10K/5K), and Pierce Murphy (5K/10K).