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      21  5 2182 1941 -0.099 10.752    1  0.583    1  0.594    2  0.540    1 0.5619   12  3.564    6  0.262    1  0.818
LIBERTY   16  6 1922 1747  0.119 11.005    2  0.551    2  0.565    1  0.605    2 0.5553    3  3.689    1  0.868    4  0.342
MERCURY   15  8 1914 1835  0.086 11.472    3  0.373    3  0.392    4  0.279    3 0.5410    5  3.641    2  0.331    6  0.228
STORM     14 10 1924 1883  0.047 11.868    4  0.181    4  0.201    7  0.068    4 0.5192   10  3.590    9 -0.101    5  0.236
DREAM     14 10 2005 1888  0.034 11.274    5  0.157    5  0.154    3  0.361    5 0.5158    8  3.615    4  0.299    3  0.423
FEVER     13 12 2095 2001  0.050 12.022    6  0.044    6  0.046    5  0.252    7 0.5012    4  3.643    3  0.312    7  0.192
ACES      12 11 1861 1878 -0.026 11.025    7  0.011    7  0.041    8 -0.062    6 0.5016    7  3.635    8 -0.037    9 -0.088
VALKYRIES 10 12 1741 1717  0.135 11.573    8 -0.011    8 -0.006    6  0.211    8 0.4980   13  3.550   10 -0.127    2  0.548
MYSTICS   11 12 1812 1861 -0.015 11.304    9 -0.054    9 -0.032   10 -0.197    9 0.4927   11  3.582   11 -0.397    8  0.002
SPARKS     9 14 1924 1997  0.043 11.794   10 -0.196   10 -0.195    9 -0.182   10 0.4792    1  3.730    5  0.267   12 -0.630
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SKY        7 16 1784 1989  0.053 12.507   11 -0.372   11 -0.342   12 -0.548   11 0.4589    6  3.640   12 -0.502   11 -0.595
WINGS      7 17 1969 2060 -0.049 11.632   12 -0.471   12 -0.483   11 -0.262   12 0.4510    2  3.697    7  0.039   10 -0.564
SUN        3 19 1599 1935 -0.014 11.563   13 -0.796   13 -0.772   13 -1.053   13 0.4155    9  3.607   13 -1.146   13 -0.959

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      21  5 2182 1941 -0.099 10.752    1  0.583    1  0.594    2  0.540    1 0.5619   12  3.564    6  0.262    1  0.818
MERCURY   15  8 1914 1835  0.086 11.472    3  0.373    3  0.392    4  0.279    3 0.5410    5  3.641    2  0.331    6  0.228
STORM     14 10 1924 1883  0.047 11.868    4  0.181    4  0.201    7  0.068    4 0.5192   10  3.590    9 -0.101    5  0.236
ACES      12 11 1861 1878 -0.026 11.025    7  0.011    7  0.041    8 -0.062    6 0.5016    7  3.635    8 -0.037    9 -0.088
VALKYRIES 10 12 1741 1717  0.135 11.573    8 -0.011    8 -0.006    6  0.211    8 0.4980   13  3.550   10 -0.127    2  0.548
SPARKS     9 14 1924 1997  0.043 11.794   10 -0.196   10 -0.195    9 -0.182   10 0.4792    1  3.730    5  0.267   12 -0.630
WINGS      7 17 1969 2060 -0.049 11.632   12 -0.471   12 -0.483   11 -0.262   12 0.4510    2  3.697    7  0.039   10 -0.564

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   16  6 1922 1747  0.119 11.005    2  0.551    2  0.565    1  0.605    2 0.5553    3  3.689    1  0.868    4  0.342
DREAM     14 10 2005 1888  0.034 11.274    5  0.157    5  0.154    3  0.361    5 0.5158    8  3.615    4  0.299    3  0.423
FEVER     13 12 2095 2001  0.050 12.022    6  0.044    6  0.046    5  0.252    7 0.5012    4  3.643    3  0.312    7  0.192
MYSTICS   11 12 1812 1861 -0.015 11.304    9 -0.054    9 -0.032   10 -0.197    9 0.4927   11  3.582   11 -0.397    8  0.002
SKY        7 16 1784 1989  0.053 12.507   11 -0.372   11 -0.342   12 -0.548   11 0.4589    6  3.640   12 -0.502   11 -0.595
SUN        3 19 1599 1935 -0.014 11.563   13 -0.796   13 -0.772   13 -1.053   13 0.4155    9  3.607   13 -1.146   13 -0.959

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 88 77 0.533    1  0.099
EASTERN CONFERENCE 64 75 0.460    2 -0.094

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 24 05:30:07 2025
games through: Wed Jul 23 2025

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