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
VALKYRIES 5 2 605 546  0.044  3.274    4  0.212    4  0.230    2  0.281    4 0.5158   13  3.613   10 -0.024    1  0.586 P
DREAM     4 2 501 492  0.455  3.919    2  0.312    2  0.333    4  0.244    2 0.5559   12  3.618   11 -0.038    2  0.526 P
LYNX      5 2 628 575  0.282  3.963    1  0.350    1  0.343    1  0.452    1 0.5597    8  3.687    2  0.474    3  0.431 P
MYSTICS   3 3 497 518 -0.060  2.851   11 -0.054   10 -0.013   10 -0.153   12 0.4802   15  3.592   13 -0.548    4  0.242 P
WINGS     5 3 711 678  0.297  4.695    3  0.230    3  0.260    3  0.262    3 0.5403    5  3.708    3  0.379    5  0.145 P
STORM     3 5 636 650 -0.445  2.773   14 -0.308   14 -0.325   14 -0.257   14 0.4306   14  3.610   14 -0.573    6  0.060 P
MERCURY   2 6 685 693  0.174  4.430   13 -0.232   13 -0.216    8  0.027   13 0.4508    9  3.678    9  0.009    7  0.045 P
FIRE      5 3 670 681 -0.220  3.358    6  0.047    6  0.074   12 -0.172    7 0.4934   10  3.649   12 -0.317    8 -0.027 P
LIBERTY   4 4 704 681 -0.103  3.460   10 -0.039   11 -0.041    6  0.061    9 0.4856    6  3.705    7  0.164    9 -0.043 P
SKY       3 4 604 611  0.277  4.178    7  0.038    7  0.035    9  0.026    8 0.4926    7  3.705    8  0.127   10 -0.074 P
TEAM      W L  PF  PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
FEVER     4 3 650 612  0.081  3.450    5  0.103    5  0.095    5  0.210    5 0.5087    3  3.759    1  0.559   11 -0.139 P
ACES      4 3 637 620 -0.206  2.768    8  0.037    8  0.018    7  0.034    6 0.4938    4  3.754    4  0.360   12 -0.292 P
SUN       1 8 672 800 -0.263  3.907   15 -0.589   15 -0.565   15 -0.726   15 0.3856   11  3.621   15 -0.994   13 -0.458 P
TEMPO     4 4 713 729 -0.119  3.581   12 -0.092   12 -0.047   11 -0.163   11 0.4835    2  3.765    6  0.213   14 -0.538 P
SPARKS    3 3 549 576 -0.025  2.940    9 -0.014    9 -0.005   13 -0.179   10 0.4838    1  3.775    5  0.243   15 -0.601 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
VALKYRIES 5 2 605 546  0.044  3.274    4  0.212    4  0.230    2  0.281    4 0.5158   13  3.613   10 -0.024    1  0.586 P
LYNX      5 2 628 575  0.282  3.963    1  0.350    1  0.343    1  0.452    1 0.5597    8  3.687    2  0.474    3  0.431 P
WINGS     5 3 711 678  0.297  4.695    3  0.230    3  0.260    3  0.262    3 0.5403    5  3.708    3  0.379    5  0.145 P
STORM     3 5 636 650 -0.445  2.773   14 -0.308   14 -0.325   14 -0.257   14 0.4306   14  3.610   14 -0.573    6  0.060 P
MERCURY   2 6 685 693  0.174  4.430   13 -0.232   13 -0.216    8  0.027   13 0.4508    9  3.678    9  0.009    7  0.045 P
FIRE      5 3 670 681 -0.220  3.358    6  0.047    6  0.074   12 -0.172    7 0.4934   10  3.649   12 -0.317    8 -0.027 P
ACES      4 3 637 620 -0.206  2.768    8  0.037    8  0.018    7  0.034    6 0.4938    4  3.754    4  0.360   12 -0.292 P
SPARKS    3 3 549 576 -0.025  2.940    9 -0.014    9 -0.005   13 -0.179   10 0.4838    1  3.775    5  0.243   15 -0.601 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     4 2 501 492  0.455  3.919    2  0.312    2  0.333    4  0.244    2 0.5559   12  3.618   11 -0.038    2  0.526 P
MYSTICS   3 3 497 518 -0.060  2.851   11 -0.054   10 -0.013   10 -0.153   12 0.4802   15  3.592   13 -0.548    4  0.242 P
LIBERTY   4 4 704 681 -0.103  3.460   10 -0.039   11 -0.041    6  0.061    9 0.4856    6  3.705    7  0.164    9 -0.043 P
SKY       3 4 604 611  0.277  4.178    7  0.038    7  0.035    9  0.026    8 0.4926    7  3.705    8  0.127   10 -0.074 P
FEVER     4 3 650 612  0.081  3.450    5  0.103    5  0.095    5  0.210    5 0.5087    3  3.759    1  0.559   11 -0.139 P
SUN       1 8 672 800 -0.263  3.907   15 -0.589   15 -0.565   15 -0.726   15 0.3856   11  3.621   15 -0.994   13 -0.458 P
TEMPO     4 4 713 729 -0.119  3.581   12 -0.092   12 -0.047   11 -0.163   11 0.4835    2  3.765    6  0.213   14 -0.538 P

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 32 27 0.542    1  0.107
EASTERN CONFERENCE 23 28 0.451    2 -0.067

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 May 29 05:30:07 2026
games through: Thu May 28 2026

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