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      8 2 905 794  0.261  5.451    1  0.611    1  0.607    1  0.782    1 0.5660    6  3.686    1  0.860    1  0.704 P
DREAM     6 3 749 716  0.352  5.309    2  0.438    2  0.451    3  0.357    2 0.5476   14  3.594    8  0.035    2  0.678 P
WINGS     6 3 790 734  0.289  5.133    3  0.371    3  0.387    2  0.434    3 0.5412    5  3.690    3  0.529    4  0.338 P
ACES      6 3 807 770 -0.137  3.756    4  0.190    4  0.188    7  0.148    4 0.5162    4  3.724    4  0.398   10 -0.102 P
VALKYRIES 6 4 865 801  0.079  4.867    5  0.181    5  0.177    4  0.345    5 0.5070   11  3.642    6  0.229    3  0.460 P
FEVER     5 4 817 783  0.081  4.531    6  0.118    6  0.116    5  0.217    6 0.5063    2  3.751    2  0.591   11 -0.156 P
LIBERTY   6 4 876 831 -0.092  4.374    7  0.105    7  0.096    6  0.169    7 0.5042    7  3.666    7  0.161    5  0.176 P
FIRE      6 5 913 946 -0.049  5.460    8  0.033    8  0.085   12 -0.196    8 0.4954    8  3.664   12 -0.214   12 -0.177 P
MYSTICS   4 4 674 682 -0.140  3.559    9 -0.096   10 -0.078    9 -0.124    9 0.4741   13  3.622   13 -0.326    6  0.078 P
SKY       3 6 734 780  0.297  5.625   10 -0.101    9 -0.055    8 -0.123   10 0.4726   10  3.655   11 -0.180    8 -0.067 P
TEAM      W L  PF  PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
TEMPO     5 5 888 898 -0.199  4.236   11 -0.125   11 -0.112   11 -0.184   11 0.4720    1  3.777    5  0.311   14 -0.679 P
SPARKS    4 5 791 826 -0.154  4.084   12 -0.192   12 -0.173   13 -0.301   12 0.4672    3  3.738    9  0.014   13 -0.615 P
MERCURY   3 8 902 947  0.159  6.235   13 -0.287   13 -0.286   10 -0.125   13 0.4481    9  3.660   10 -0.161    9 -0.089 P
STORM     3 8 832 894 -0.372  4.435   14 -0.553   14 -0.580   14 -0.538   14 0.4115   15  3.537   15 -1.101    7  0.026 P
SUN       2 9 831 972 -0.301  4.870   15 -0.693   15 -0.670   15 -0.848   15 0.4043   12  3.639   14 -0.976   15 -0.720 P

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      8 2 905 794  0.261  5.451    1  0.611    1  0.607    1  0.782    1 0.5660    6  3.686    1  0.860    1  0.704 P
WINGS     6 3 790 734  0.289  5.133    3  0.371    3  0.387    2  0.434    3 0.5412    5  3.690    3  0.529    4  0.338 P
ACES      6 3 807 770 -0.137  3.756    4  0.190    4  0.188    7  0.148    4 0.5162    4  3.724    4  0.398   10 -0.102 P
VALKYRIES 6 4 865 801  0.079  4.867    5  0.181    5  0.177    4  0.345    5 0.5070   11  3.642    6  0.229    3  0.460 P
FIRE      6 5 913 946 -0.049  5.460    8  0.033    8  0.085   12 -0.196    8 0.4954    8  3.664   12 -0.214   12 -0.177 P
SPARKS    4 5 791 826 -0.154  4.084   12 -0.192   12 -0.173   13 -0.301   12 0.4672    3  3.738    9  0.014   13 -0.615 P
MERCURY   3 8 902 947  0.159  6.235   13 -0.287   13 -0.286   10 -0.125   13 0.4481    9  3.660   10 -0.161    9 -0.089 P
STORM     3 8 832 894 -0.372  4.435   14 -0.553   14 -0.580   14 -0.538   14 0.4115   15  3.537   15 -1.101    7  0.026 P

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
DREAM     6 3 749 716  0.352  5.309    2  0.438    2  0.451    3  0.357    2 0.5476   14  3.594    8  0.035    2  0.678 P
FEVER     5 4 817 783  0.081  4.531    6  0.118    6  0.116    5  0.217    6 0.5063    2  3.751    2  0.591   11 -0.156 P
LIBERTY   6 4 876 831 -0.092  4.374    7  0.105    7  0.096    6  0.169    7 0.5042    7  3.666    7  0.161    5  0.176 P
MYSTICS   4 4 674 682 -0.140  3.559    9 -0.096   10 -0.078    9 -0.124    9 0.4741   13  3.622   13 -0.326    6  0.078 P
SKY       3 6 734 780  0.297  5.625   10 -0.101    9 -0.055    8 -0.123   10 0.4726   10  3.655   11 -0.180    8 -0.067 P
TEMPO     5 5 888 898 -0.199  4.236   11 -0.125   11 -0.112   11 -0.184   11 0.4720    1  3.777    5  0.311   14 -0.679 P
SUN       2 9 831 972 -0.301  4.870   15 -0.693   15 -0.670   15 -0.848   15 0.4043   12  3.639   14 -0.976   15 -0.720 P

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 42 38 0.525    1  0.102
EASTERN CONFERENCE 31 35 0.470    2 -0.065

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

Predict score:








Team Strength vs. Time Plot:






posted: Fri Jun  5 05:30:07 2026
games through: Thu Jun  4 2026

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.