quick thoughts on the m5K heats.
stanford's Benedikt Bunz is seeded first, and he's raced very sparingly this spring (only a road race win that I can see). Fantastic run at last year's 5K, sticking with Rob until the final lap where it took a 63 to drop him on 15:10 pace. Had a bad day at XC nats, finished 20th. Has good speed with a 1:56 800 PR from 2015.
ISU's Will Graham ran a ridiculous 8:41 3K at Illinois club relays, the fastest of all the entrants, but he was helped there by Nathan Kwan pacing to a 8:39 — the whole field is lucky that neither him nor the rest of UC Davis is coming this year. Split a not-quite-as-good 4:27 mile at that meet and was only 55th at XC nats, but he was 5th at last year's 5K. He'll be helped again by having his teammate Jason Thomas right there with him — Jason split an 8:48 at Illinois CR right behind Will and he has the best theoretical speed in the field with 1:55.1 800 and 4:16 mile PRS from HS. Had a decent result of 7th at 2016 XC nats as well. They're really the only team pair in this race (maybe other than Michigan) that has any hope of using team tactics, and if it works out a 1-2 isn't impossible.
Indiana usually sends a good crew of guys to spring nats (not that they have to go far) and David Eichenberger is one of them, having placed 10th last year and having a 15:01 5K PR (and 24:50 8K) from running at Miami Ohio back in 2010. Only 61st at XC though, and I can't find any results for him this season. They didn't overlap, but speaking of Miami Ohio they're also sending Robby Alexander, who split an 8:50 3K and 4:37 mile at Illinois CR, though he lost to Will and Jason Thomas in that race. DNS at the '16 5K and just 49th at XC last year. Amazingly ran just 17:01 at 2015 track nats, his 8:50 3K is a huge improvement upon that so who knows what his ceiling is.
UMD's Ryun Anderson has the fastest 5K SB in the field to my knowledge with his 14:59 at a D3 meet in PA last weekend. Assuming he used that as his seed, that also means all the guys I mentioned above think they can run faster than that (NIRCA seeding is basically the honor system). That's a pretty hard effort to give just one week before nats though so we'll see how he recovers. Split a nice 8:46 3K at a UMD meet which I believe is the 2nd-fastest in the field, though he lost to Andrew Sell running 8:53 at PSU. Sell will also be one to watch out for, as he's just a freshman but finished 5th at 2016 XC nats, making him the top XC returner, and he won the PSU 3K with an 8:48.
Penn's Ian Whittall is the dark horse of this race. He races very sparingly and skipped out on nats last year, but he won the competitive mid-atlantic XC regional and actually has yet to lose to a club competitor in all of 2016 and 2017. Has a 15:00 5K PR from 2015, and is coming off a 8:49 3K win (and also a PR) at an indoor Armory meet against NCAA teams.
Indiana's second hope is Stephen Gomez, who might have the fastest lifetime 5K PR in the field with a 14:55 (along with an 8:44 3K) from 2015. He was only 63rd at 2016 XC nats though, and hasn't done any races that I can see yet on the track this season. Also in the mix as a second hope will be John Lacy from PSU who was only 28th at '16 XC nats but he was also an impressive 3rd in the '16 5K, making him the 2nd-best returner behind Bunz. Michigan's Lucas Peterson and Ross Pendergast went 9-11 at XC nats and will both be in the race as well, and with all the XC variability here that's a good enough result. Illinois' Auburn Jiminez was 6th in the 5K last year (4th best returner). Indiana's Josh Foss has run a 69:16 half (in 2011 no less) so he's one of the few runners in the field with good strength.
6-7 of these guys probably have the capability to go sub-15 in a paced race right now, but it would be really impressive to see that happen in a championship setting on sunday. And because nats is so early in the season, many of these guys are using it as their outdoor season-opener or we only have one indoor race to base fitness off of so it's really tough to predict. What's cool about this year's field is that so many of them seem to be so close in ability right now based on 3K times, and there's no prohibitive favorite like Rob was last year. Plus the XC nats results are all over the place showing that on the right day any of these guys could win it.