Dolphin Ratings - Women's National Basketball Association

Explanation: Each team is listed with its record, overall score differential, and its ratings. Brief explanations of the ratings follow.

Schedule The number in this column is the effective opponent strength of a team. In other words, they would be expected to have the same record had they played all games against an opponent of this predictive rating at a neutral site. Because this calculation depends on the strength of the team in question, it is not possible to rank schedules using these values.
Expected Losses For college teams, this number is the number of losses an average ranked (top 15 hockey; otherwise top 25) team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. For pro teams, this is the number of losses an average team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. Unlike the schedule ranking, this value can be used to rank schedules.
Standard Ranks teams in an order such that a team is "probably better" than all teams ranked lower than it. This calculation uses margin of victory only for computing a team's opponents strengths; the team's rating itself is computed using only wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule
Median Likelihood Determines the likely ratings for each team, based on its wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule. This generally produces the same or similar ratings as the standard ranking.
Predictive Both schedule strength and rating vs. schedule strength are determined considering both the wins and losses and the score differentials. This rating contains none of the biases in the standard rating, but does weight recent games slightly more than past games since those are a better indication of the team's current strength. This rating is the best of the first three for seeing how good teams are, and thus is the best for predicting future results.
Improved RPI Rating The improved RPI formula is similar to the standard RPI, except that the schedule strength is carried out to infinite depth instead of ending with opponents' opponents, thus allows for a better comparison of isolated groups of teams than is given by the standard RPI calculation. It is similar to the simple rating, except that all games are given equal weight.
Scoring. This value indicates how many points a team would be expected to score if it played an identical team.
Offense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team scores. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to score the league average number of points. This does not necessarily rate a team's offensive abilities, as a fast pace in basketball or big-play defense in football can make a team score more points.
Defense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team allows. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to allow the league average number of points. The same caveat in the predictive-offense rating applies here.

In order to increase early-season stability, the three main rankings, the improved RPI, and the college pseudopoll include priors based on the previous season final predictive ratings and occasionally incorporating preseason predictions of various major publications. The other rankings for college sports do not include priors, and thus can be wildly unstable early in the year. A team whose rankings are affected by this prior is noted with a P following its rankings.

Full Ranking

                                          STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
LYNX      23  6 2477 2202 -0.065 12.509    1  0.556    1  0.566    1  0.585    1 0.5618   10  3.593    2  0.409    1  0.761
LIBERTY   17 10 2347 2194  0.069 13.282    2  0.290    2  0.289    3  0.342    2 0.5324    3  3.699    1  0.627    8  0.058
MERCURY   16 11 2251 2198  0.096 13.883    3  0.250    3  0.269    5  0.166    3 0.5271    4  3.656    6  0.259    7  0.074
DREAM     17 11 2353 2208  0.042 13.441    4  0.229    4  0.225    2  0.399    4 0.5234    8  3.623    4  0.350    3  0.448
FEVER     17 12 2463 2328  0.003 13.546    5  0.161    5  0.160    4  0.297    5 0.5157    5  3.652    3  0.375    5  0.220
STORM     16 12 2284 2202 -0.034 13.008    6  0.105    6  0.110    6  0.112    6 0.5123   11  3.583    9 -0.111    4  0.334
VALKYRIES 14 13 2109 2096  0.026 13.357    7  0.042    8  0.048    7  0.040    7 0.5051   13  3.531   11 -0.401    2  0.480
ACES      14 13 2204 2221  0.004 13.263    8  0.037    7  0.050    8 -0.016    8 0.5029    6  3.641    8  0.015    9 -0.047
MYSTICS   13 14 2123 2161 -0.017 13.210    9 -0.043    9 -0.033    9 -0.128    9 0.4944   12  3.571   10 -0.401    6  0.146
SPARKS    12 15 2308 2377  0.007 13.566   10 -0.104   10 -0.103   10 -0.157   10 0.4904    1  3.741    5  0.320   11 -0.633
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
WINGS      8 21 2380 2510  0.008 14.776   11 -0.453   12 -0.468   11 -0.270   11 0.4494    2  3.702    7  0.028   10 -0.567
SKY        7 20 2071 2353  0.052 14.700   12 -0.468   11 -0.446   12 -0.693   12 0.4487    7  3.637   12 -0.683   13 -0.703
SUN        5 21 1943 2263  0.028 13.877   13 -0.604   13 -0.591   13 -0.718   13 0.4306    9  3.618   13 -0.789   12 -0.648

WESTERN CONFERENCE
                                          STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
LYNX      23  6 2477 2202 -0.065 12.509    1  0.556    1  0.566    1  0.585    1 0.5618   10  3.593    2  0.409    1  0.761
MERCURY   16 11 2251 2198  0.096 13.883    3  0.250    3  0.269    5  0.166    3 0.5271    4  3.656    6  0.259    7  0.074
STORM     16 12 2284 2202 -0.034 13.008    6  0.105    6  0.110    6  0.112    6 0.5123   11  3.583    9 -0.111    4  0.334
VALKYRIES 14 13 2109 2096  0.026 13.357    7  0.042    8  0.048    7  0.040    7 0.5051   13  3.531   11 -0.401    2  0.480
ACES      14 13 2204 2221  0.004 13.263    8  0.037    7  0.050    8 -0.016    8 0.5029    6  3.641    8  0.015    9 -0.047
SPARKS    12 15 2308 2377  0.007 13.566   10 -0.104   10 -0.103   10 -0.157   10 0.4904    1  3.741    5  0.320   11 -0.633
WINGS      8 21 2380 2510  0.008 14.776   11 -0.453   12 -0.468   11 -0.270   11 0.4494    2  3.702    7  0.028   10 -0.567

EASTERN CONFERENCE
                                          STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
LIBERTY   17 10 2347 2194  0.069 13.282    2  0.290    2  0.289    3  0.342    2 0.5324    3  3.699    1  0.627    8  0.058
DREAM     17 11 2353 2208  0.042 13.441    4  0.229    4  0.225    2  0.399    4 0.5234    8  3.623    4  0.350    3  0.448
FEVER     17 12 2463 2328  0.003 13.546    5  0.161    5  0.160    4  0.297    5 0.5157    5  3.652    3  0.375    5  0.220
MYSTICS   13 14 2123 2161 -0.017 13.210    9 -0.043    9 -0.033    9 -0.128    9 0.4944   12  3.571   10 -0.401    6  0.146
SKY        7 20 2071 2353  0.052 14.700   12 -0.468   11 -0.446   12 -0.693   12 0.4487    7  3.637   12 -0.683   13 -0.703
SUN        5 21 1943 2263  0.028 13.877   13 -0.604   13 -0.591   13 -0.718   13 0.4306    9  3.618   13 -0.789   12 -0.648

DIVISION             W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 103  91 0.531    1  0.081
EASTERN CONFERENCE  76  88 0.463    2 -0.092

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.311 points in main ratings (0.226 for semineutral)
     0.030 points in improved RPI (0.023 for semineutral)
Average of 2.15 points per score

Predict score:








Team Strength vs. Time Plot:






posted: Sat Aug  2 05:30:10 2025
games through: Fri Aug  1 2025

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