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
DREAM     4 1 420 396  0.396  3.139    1  0.305    1  0.317    2  0.258    1 0.5752   15  3.594    9 -0.147    1  0.663 P
LYNX      4 2 532 494  0.243  3.321    2  0.222    2  0.215    1  0.319    2 0.5463    9  3.694    2  0.350    3  0.289 P
WINGS     4 3 616 591  0.306  4.147    3  0.149    3  0.153    3  0.186    3 0.5333    7  3.714    5  0.306    6  0.065 P
FEVER     4 2 562 522 -0.049  2.648    4  0.103    4  0.104    5  0.152    4 0.5201    3  3.733    1  0.360    8 -0.057 P
VALKYRIES 3 2 418 388  0.132  2.614    5  0.080    5  0.099    4  0.162    6 0.5038   14  3.595   12 -0.242    2  0.567 P
ACES      4 2 550 525 -0.214  2.273    6  0.075    6  0.089    6  0.089    5 0.5150    2  3.740    4  0.326   11 -0.149 P
SKY       3 3 500 500  0.294  3.625    7  0.058    7  0.083    8  0.038    7 0.5038   11  3.640   11 -0.172    4  0.249 P
SPARKS    3 3 549 576 -0.021  2.968    8  0.002    8 -0.002   11 -0.155    8 0.4881    1  3.794    3  0.335   15 -0.646 P
FIRE      3 3 518 546 -0.156  2.698   10 -0.055    9 -0.034   14 -0.211   10 0.4755    4  3.729    8 -0.024   14 -0.399 P
LIBERTY   3 3 546 526 -0.186  2.384    9 -0.026   10 -0.048    9  0.038    9 0.4832    5  3.725    6  0.206   10 -0.130 P
TEAM      W L  PF  PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
MYSTICS   2 3 419 454 -0.023  2.505   11 -0.081   11 -0.065   13 -0.211   11 0.4675   13  3.626   14 -0.480    7  0.059 P
TEMPO     3 4 602 625 -0.180  3.006   12 -0.129   12 -0.120   12 -0.205   12 0.4653    8  3.698   10 -0.157   12 -0.254 P
MERCURY   2 5 611 609  0.182  3.871   13 -0.144   13 -0.134    7  0.066   13 0.4644    6  3.715    7  0.193    9 -0.061 P
STORM     3 4 572 572 -0.411  2.366   14 -0.181   14 -0.196   10 -0.128   14 0.4423   12  3.634   13 -0.364    5  0.107 P
SUN       1 6 541 632 -0.212  3.093   15 -0.379   15 -0.362   15 -0.482   15 0.3982   10  3.643   15 -0.680   13 -0.285 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      4 2 532 494  0.243  3.321    2  0.222    2  0.215    1  0.319    2 0.5463    9  3.694    2  0.350    3  0.289 P
WINGS     4 3 616 591  0.306  4.147    3  0.149    3  0.153    3  0.186    3 0.5333    7  3.714    5  0.306    6  0.065 P
VALKYRIES 3 2 418 388  0.132  2.614    5  0.080    5  0.099    4  0.162    6 0.5038   14  3.595   12 -0.242    2  0.567 P
ACES      4 2 550 525 -0.214  2.273    6  0.075    6  0.089    6  0.089    5 0.5150    2  3.740    4  0.326   11 -0.149 P
SPARKS    3 3 549 576 -0.021  2.968    8  0.002    8 -0.002   11 -0.155    8 0.4881    1  3.794    3  0.335   15 -0.646 P
FIRE      3 3 518 546 -0.156  2.698   10 -0.055    9 -0.034   14 -0.211   10 0.4755    4  3.729    8 -0.024   14 -0.399 P
MERCURY   2 5 611 609  0.182  3.871   13 -0.144   13 -0.134    7  0.066   13 0.4644    6  3.715    7  0.193    9 -0.061 P
STORM     3 4 572 572 -0.411  2.366   14 -0.181   14 -0.196   10 -0.128   14 0.4423   12  3.634   13 -0.364    5  0.107 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 1 420 396  0.396  3.139    1  0.305    1  0.317    2  0.258    1 0.5752   15  3.594    9 -0.147    1  0.663 P
FEVER     4 2 562 522 -0.049  2.648    4  0.103    4  0.104    5  0.152    4 0.5201    3  3.733    1  0.360    8 -0.057 P
SKY       3 3 500 500  0.294  3.625    7  0.058    7  0.083    8  0.038    7 0.5038   11  3.640   11 -0.172    4  0.249 P
LIBERTY   3 3 546 526 -0.186  2.384    9 -0.026   10 -0.048    9  0.038    9 0.4832    5  3.725    6  0.206   10 -0.130 P
MYSTICS   2 3 419 454 -0.023  2.505   11 -0.081   11 -0.065   13 -0.211   11 0.4675   13  3.626   14 -0.480    7  0.059 P
TEMPO     3 4 602 625 -0.180  3.006   12 -0.129   12 -0.120   12 -0.205   12 0.4653    8  3.698   10 -0.157   12 -0.254 P
SUN       1 6 541 632 -0.212  3.093   15 -0.379   15 -0.362   15 -0.482   15 0.3982   10  3.643   15 -0.680   13 -0.285 P

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 26 24 0.520    1  0.101
EASTERN CONFERENCE 20 22 0.476    2 -0.083

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: Mon May 25 05:30:06 2026
games through: Sun May 24 2026

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.