Pac-12 women’s basketball coaches tab Stanford as favorite

Recommended Video:

The Ogwumike sisters’ six-year reign of terror is over at Stanford now that Chiney has followed Nneka into the pros.

So which women’s basketball team was picked to win the Pac-12 in a preseason poll of conference coaches?

The Cardinal. Some things never change.

It was the 15th straight year that the Cardinal were the top pick, although Cal and Oregon State were close behind in the balloting. The margin between first and second was the narrowest since 2008.

“Stanford is Stanford,’’ said Kelly Graves, a highly successful coach at Gonzaga now piloting Oregon. “They just reload with more All-Americans.’’

Washington coach Mike Neighbors, whose team beat Stanford last season, agreed. “They’ve always had a kid with a hard name to spell to bail them out.’’

Now that the sisters are gone, “I don’t think that makes them any less dangerous,’’ he said. “They’re still the (regular-season) champs until somebody beats them. Their demise is way overestimated.’’

USC coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, whose team won the Pac-12 tournament last season for the first time, said, “I for one am excited that we don’t have an Ogwumike at Stanford. But Stanford will be equally as tough as they have been in the past.’’

Stanford has won at least a share of the regular-season title 14 years in a row, although its loss in the conference tournament was its first in eight years.

Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer gives some direction to her squad on Saturday, April 5, 2014, during open practice for the Final Four in Nashville, Tenn. (John Woike/Hartford Courant/MCT) Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer gives some direction to her squad on Saturday, April 5, 2014, during open practice for the Final Four in Nashville, Tenn. (John Woike/Hartford Courant/MCT) Photo: John Woike / McClatchy-Tribune News Service Photo: John Woike / McClatchy-Tribune News Service Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Pac-12 women’s basketball coaches tab Stanford as favorite 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Coach Tara VanDerveer said it didn’t surprise her that her fellow coaches picked the Cardinal first. “Hopefully we can live up to the coaches’ opinion,’’ she said archly. “I don’t want to disappoint them.’’

However, she also said, “Do I expect a big battle this year? I expect it every year.’’

After 12 years of running the triangle offense with post players including Jayne Appel and the Ogwumike sisters, she has dropped it this year in favor of more screens and pick-and-roll plays to better utilize the talents of guards Amber Orrange and Lili Thompson.

VanDerveer hasn’t taught that approach in 36 years of coaching, 29 of them at Stanford. So she brought in instructors including former Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni to tutor her players on the pick-and-roll and guard spacing.

“Some of our fast breaks will look like Paul Westhead’s,’’ she said, referring to another former Lakers coach whose contract was not renewed at Oregon after last season.

In coach Lindsay Gottlieb’s fourth year, the Bears probably will go as far as All-America candidates Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray can take them. But they’re also looking to get a big lift from freshmen Gabby Green and Mikayla Cowling, both from St. Mary’s-Berkeley, and New Zealand’s Penina Davidson.

Green and Cowling, both 6-foot-2, were McDonald’s All-Americans, and Gottlieb called them “freaks of nature.’’ Of Green, a guard, Gottlieb said, “I’ve never seen anybody like her. She has the savvy of a veteran player.’’ Cowling, a forward, has “great athleticism but with a guard’s skill set,’’ Gottlieb said.

Boyd, a Berkeley native in her fourth year as Cal’s starting point guard, probably will be a first-round pick in the next WNBA draft.

Boyd has taken a far greater leadership role, according to Gottlieb. She said she watched a tape of a no-coaches practice during which “the entire sound track of the video is (Boyd’s) voice. I couldn’t get her to open her mouth the first year and a half.’’

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald

Pac-12 coaches poll