Breaking Down 2025 NCAA Indoor Entries — The Hardest Meet to Qualify for in NCAA History

The entries for the 2025 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships were released today, and it was a historically difficult to meet to qualify for. The NCAA accepts the top 16 declared entrants in each individual event (top 12 in relays) and all 10 mid-d/distance events (800, mile, 3000, 5000, distance medley relay for both the men and women) produced the fastest cutoff times in meet history. For the first time ever, it required sub-1:47 to make it in the men’s 800, sub-3:55 in the men’s mile, sub-2:02 in the women’s 800, sub-4:30 in the women’s mile, sub-8:50 in the women’s 3000, and sub-15:30 in the women’s 5000.

We also now know which individual events all of the biggest stars will be contesting at NCAAs. North Carolina’s Ethan Strand and Gary Martin, who became the first two collegians to break 3:50 in the mile this season, have scratched the mile and will run the DMR/3000 double instead. Washington’s 2023 NCAA 1500 champ Nathan Green, however, scratched the 3000 and will run the mile (and perhaps the DMR as well).

Below are the cutoff times for the 2025 meet, which will be held in Virginia Beach from March 14-15, as well as the cutoff times for the last three editions. You can see the full list of qualifiers here.

Men’s final qualifier for NCAA indoors, 2022-25

Women’s final qualifier for NCAA indoors, 2022-25

A few thoughts on the qualifying times as well as the NCAA declarations.

The men’s DMR and 3000 will be must-watch events

The NCAA is loaded with men’s middle distance talent right now: the 2025 season has seen collegiate records in the men’s mile, 3000, and DMR. Fast times are fun, but the man who broke two of those records, North Carolina’s Ethan Strand, believes titles are what truly matter.

“You run super fast times but at the end of the day, they’re times,” Strand said on the LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast after running 3:48.32 to break the mile record. “What sticks around forever are winning championships. So that’s definitely my focus over the next few months.”

Strand at the Olympic Trials last year (Kevin Morris photo)

Strand has never won an NCAA title. Nor has Virginia’s Gary Martin, who moved to #2 on the all-time NCAA list behind Strand thanks to his 3:48.82 at Millrose. Both of those guys will get a chance to change that in Virginia Beach — but not in the mile.

Both Strand and Martin entered the 3000 instead of the mile at NCAAs, presumably so they could pull double duty, anchoring the DMR on Friday and running the 3000 on Saturday. It’s a common double for top milers at NCAAs, though it has been a while since someone anchored the winning DMR and doubled back to win the 3000. Oregon’s Edward Cheserek was the last to do it, back in 2016, though Fouad Messaoudi won the 3000 in 2023 after running the 1200 leg on Oklahoma State’s winning DMR.

Strand and Martin have already battled once this championship season, with Strand crushing Martin by 4+ seconds in the 5000 at the ACC Championships, and the NCAA 3000 will hardly be a two-man race. Strand’s UNC teammate Parker Wolfe, the reigning NCAA outdoor 5k champ, is also entered, as is Arkansas’ Yaseen Abdalla (7:34 pb), 3:31 1500 man Adam Spencer of Wisconsin, and the big-kicking Liam Murphy of Villanova.

One guy who’s not in the 3000, though, is Washington’s Nathan Green. The 2023 NCAA 1500 champ, Green is entered in the mile, where he will try to make it six straight NCAA 1500/mile titles for Washington athletes. He could conceivably face Strand and Martin in the DMR, but Washington coach Andy Powell might be hesitant to use Green on the DMR (which will be held less than two hours after the mile prelims on Friday), especially on anchor.

In 2023, Powell used reigning NCAA 1500 champ Joe Waskom on the 1200 leg of the DMR and Green on the 800 leg and that team only finished 4th. Last year, Powell didn’t run any of Washington’s big guns — Waskom, Green, or NCAA mile champ Luke Houser — on the DMR. Washington has the top two seeds in the mile in 2025 (Green and Ronan McMahon-Staggs), but we wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t run the DMR in order to stay fresh for the mile final.

The women’s mile went crazy in 2025

Entering the 2023 season, only two collegiate women had ever broken 4:27 in the mile: Colorado’s Jenny Simpson in 2009 and New Hampshire’s Elle St. Pierre in 2018. Both went on to become world champions at the senior level.

The feat has become more common recently, with NC State’s Katelyn Tuohy, Harvard’s Maia Ramsden, and Florida’s Flomena Asekol all adding their names to the list over the last two years. But sub-4:27 was still an elite club. Entering 2025, only five college women had ever done it, and of that group, only Asekol had failed to win an NCAA title.

Things are very different this year. In 2025 alone, TWELVE college women broke 4:27 in the mile, led by new NCAA record holder Silan Ayyildiz of Oregon (4:23.46). Two of those women scratched, which means there will be 10 women at NCAAs with a pb of 4:26 or better. That time used to make you one of the fastest women in NCAA history. In 2025, it’s guaranteed that multiple sub-4:27 milers will not even score at NCAAs.

3:54 and 7:38 ain’t what they used to be

The words “longstanding” and “NCAA record” are rarely used in the same sentence anymore. Of the eight longest distance events at NCAAs — the men’s and women’s mile, 3000, 5000, and DMR — the oldest collegiate record is Katelyn Tuohy’s 8:35.20 in the 3000, which was set all the way back in…2023.

It was not always like this. Back in 2004, Arkansas’ Alistair Cragg ran 7:38.13 in the 3000. That mark stood for 18 years, until Notre Dame’s Yared Nuguse broke it in 2022. But with everyone in the NCAA now having access to supershoes (and most having access to Boston University’s super fast track), 7:38.13 would only make you the #9 seed in the 2025 NCAA 3000 final.

It’s a similar story in the mile. As recently as 2013, the NCAA mile record stood at 3:54.54 by BYU’s Miles Batty. Now, just 12 years later, that time wouldn’t even qualify for NCAAs — just as Eastern Kentucky’s Taha Er Raouy, who ran 3:54.15 and will have to watch the meet from his couch.

In the relays, the Oregon dream team that ran an NCAA record of 9:19.42 in 2021 — a squad that featured individual NCAA champions Cole Hocker, Cooper Teare, and Charlie Hunter — would only be seeded eighth in 2025, more than five seconds behind the new NCAA record holders from Washington (9:14.10).

Talk about 2025 NCAAs on the world famous LetsRun.com messageboard/fan forum:

The Official 2025 NCAA Indoor Nationals Thread