We begin our 2019 NCAA XC countdown by unveiling the first half of the LRC top 10.

With the Olympics and Diamond league season now over and the big NCAA meets approaching, we start our NCAA top 10 countdown with the women.

With the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, Roy Griak Invitational and several other meets in the books, we give you four takeaways from the first major weekend of action in NCAA cross-country.

Providence surprised everybody - including coach Ray Treacy - by finishing 13th last year. With All-American Sarah Collins back in the fold, the Friars will be even better in '15. Meanwhile, the defending champion Spartans lose three of their top five but return their top two from NCAAs in Rachele Schulist and Lindsay Clark.

With Cheserek on the anchor, can anyone stop the Ducks from winning their first DMR title since 2010? The women's race should be great with Arkansas and likely anchor Dominique Scott battling Georgetown (Katrina Coogan on anchor) and Michigan State (Leah O'Connor).

The Spartans are favored to win their first-ever NCAA title. Could they possibly do it in grand style, with the lowest point total in 10 years?

The Michigan and MSU women may not be 1-2 in the polls anymore but they're still two of the best teams in the country. The #1 Spartans are going for their fourth conference title in five years while the Wolverines are looking to get back on track after a third-place finish at Pre-Nats. In the men's race, Wisconsin will look to reclaim the title after Indiana snapped its streak of 14 consecutive wins last year.

The two biggest races of NCAA cross-country's regular season - the adidas Wisconsin Invitational and the Pre-National Invitational - are in the books and they produced a ton of data for us to analyze. We make sense of it all and give you eight takeaways from the weekend's action.

Friday's adidas Wisconsin Invitational pits #3 NAU against #7 Stanford on the men's side, while the women's race features 22 ranked teams, including #2 Michigan State, #5 Arkansas and #6 Stanford as well as 9-time defending Canadian champs Guelph. Joe Rosa, Maksim Korolev, Stanley Kebenei and Futsum Zeinasellassie will bid for the individual men's title; Shelby Houlihan leads a loaded women's individual field.

We give you the scoop on the key xc results from last weekend. Along the way, we also talk about the men of Oklahoma State and Providence. 

This year, the best team in Michigan may very well be the best team in the United States. Michigan State is led by NCAA steeple champ Leah O'Connor and will get a big boost from returners Sara Kroll and Julia Otwell, who redshirted in 2013. Michigan keeps its entire top seven from last year in tac. AMAZINGLY all seven are Michigan natives.