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      17  4 1749 1560 -0.030  9.036    1  0.615    1  0.646    1  0.550    1 0.5650   12  3.555    4  0.243    1  0.858
MERCURY   14  6 1691 1589  0.044  9.379    3  0.424    2  0.446    3  0.376    2 0.5488    5  3.644    2  0.450    5  0.303
LIBERTY   13  6 1647 1514  0.099  9.228    2  0.429    3  0.445    2  0.471    3 0.5455    3  3.685    1  0.726    6  0.215
STORM     12  8 1646 1599  0.123 10.248    4  0.258    4  0.275    7  0.191    4 0.5310    6  3.634    5  0.219    7  0.163
DREAM     12  7 1603 1495  0.009  8.588    5  0.222    5  0.216    4  0.375    5 0.5227    7  3.627    3  0.371    3  0.379
VALKYRIES 10  9 1504 1468  0.137  9.815    6  0.139    6  0.143    5  0.292    6 0.5116   13  3.540    9 -0.079    2  0.663
FEVER     10 10 1648 1563  0.019  9.243    7 -0.016    8 -0.030    6  0.264    7 0.4953    9  3.612    6  0.196    4  0.332
ACES       9 10 1512 1548 -0.046  9.067    9 -0.091    9 -0.065    9 -0.186    8 0.4924    8  3.613   10 -0.249    9 -0.123
MYSTICS    9 10 1502 1532 -0.001  9.353    8 -0.056    7 -0.028    8 -0.144    9 0.4921   11  3.591   11 -0.300    8  0.013
SPARKS     6 13 1558 1652  0.113 10.226   10 -0.293   10 -0.289   10 -0.260   10 0.4649    1  3.708    7  0.097   12 -0.617
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SKY        6 13 1502 1640 -0.037  9.518   11 -0.412   11 -0.393   12 -0.458   11 0.4516    4  3.650   12 -0.361   10 -0.554
WINGS      6 15 1713 1805 -0.057 10.187   12 -0.481   12 -0.487   11 -0.334   12 0.4510    2  3.689    8 -0.062   11 -0.606
SUN        3 16 1369 1679 -0.037  9.949   13 -0.738   13 -0.694   13 -1.138   13 0.4223   10  3.609   13 -1.216   13 -1.061

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      17  4 1749 1560 -0.030  9.036    1  0.615    1  0.646    1  0.550    1 0.5650   12  3.555    4  0.243    1  0.858
MERCURY   14  6 1691 1589  0.044  9.379    3  0.424    2  0.446    3  0.376    2 0.5488    5  3.644    2  0.450    5  0.303
STORM     12  8 1646 1599  0.123 10.248    4  0.258    4  0.275    7  0.191    4 0.5310    6  3.634    5  0.219    7  0.163
VALKYRIES 10  9 1504 1468  0.137  9.815    6  0.139    6  0.143    5  0.292    6 0.5116   13  3.540    9 -0.079    2  0.663
ACES       9 10 1512 1548 -0.046  9.067    9 -0.091    9 -0.065    9 -0.186    8 0.4924    8  3.613   10 -0.249    9 -0.123
SPARKS     6 13 1558 1652  0.113 10.226   10 -0.293   10 -0.289   10 -0.260   10 0.4649    1  3.708    7  0.097   12 -0.617
WINGS      6 15 1713 1805 -0.057 10.187   12 -0.481   12 -0.487   11 -0.334   12 0.4510    2  3.689    8 -0.062   11 -0.606

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   13  6 1647 1514  0.099  9.228    2  0.429    3  0.445    2  0.471    3 0.5455    3  3.685    1  0.726    6  0.215
DREAM     12  7 1603 1495  0.009  8.588    5  0.222    5  0.216    4  0.375    5 0.5227    7  3.627    3  0.371    3  0.379
FEVER     10 10 1648 1563  0.019  9.243    7 -0.016    8 -0.030    6  0.264    7 0.4953    9  3.612    6  0.196    4  0.332
MYSTICS    9 10 1502 1532 -0.001  9.353    8 -0.056    7 -0.028    8 -0.144    9 0.4921   11  3.591   11 -0.300    8  0.013
SKY        6 13 1502 1640 -0.037  9.518   11 -0.412   11 -0.393   12 -0.458   11 0.4516    4  3.650   12 -0.361   10 -0.554
SUN        3 16 1369 1679 -0.037  9.949   13 -0.738   13 -0.694   13 -1.138   13 0.4223   10  3.609   13 -1.216   13 -1.061

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 74 65 0.532    1  0.108
EASTERN CONFERENCE 53 62 0.461    2 -0.091

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: Thu Jul 10 05:30:06 2025
games through: Wed Jul  9 2025

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