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      30  9 3347 3001  0.033 18.375    1  0.617    1  0.620    1  0.640    1 0.5629    9  3.614    1  0.546    1  0.734
ACES      26 14 3308 3263  0.023 19.679    2  0.350    2  0.367    5  0.175    2 0.5352    5  3.650    6  0.239    6  0.112
DREAM     25 14 3254 3008  0.037 18.613    3  0.331    4  0.318    2  0.533    4 0.5319   11  3.598    3  0.368    2  0.699
MERCURY   24 14 3160 3042  0.045 18.699    4  0.320    3  0.332    4  0.226    3 0.5332    6  3.637    7  0.232    5  0.219
LIBERTY   24 15 3342 3160  0.040 18.830    5  0.264    5  0.261    3  0.265    5 0.5276    3  3.679    2  0.455    7  0.074
FEVER     22 18 3392 3271 -0.015 18.778    6  0.093    6  0.088    7  0.155    6 0.5083    4  3.664    5  0.278    8  0.032
STORM     21 19 3300 3207  0.034 19.655    7  0.077    7  0.078    6  0.167    7 0.5074    8  3.616    8  0.081    4  0.253
VALKYRIES 19 18 2898 2872 -0.012 17.765    8  0.012    8  0.014    8  0.041    8 0.5027   13  3.532   10 -0.399    3  0.481
SPARKS    17 20 3183 3266 -0.007 18.315    9 -0.103    9 -0.090    9 -0.165    9 0.4907    1  3.751    4  0.352   12 -0.681
MYSTICS   16 23 3054 3165 -0.041 18.999   10 -0.226   10 -0.219   10 -0.306   10 0.4770   12  3.583   11 -0.533    9 -0.078
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SUN       10 28 2906 3248 -0.038 19.117   11 -0.549   11 -0.538   12 -0.530   11 0.4432   10  3.608   12 -0.651   10 -0.408
SKY        9 29 2888 3274 -0.002 19.928   12 -0.588   12 -0.578   13 -0.733   12 0.4397    7  3.620   13 -0.800   11 -0.666
WINGS      9 31 3269 3524  0.009 20.586   13 -0.599   13 -0.614   11 -0.487   13 0.4378    2  3.710    9 -0.156   13 -0.818

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      30  9 3347 3001  0.033 18.375    1  0.617    1  0.620    1  0.640    1 0.5629    9  3.614    1  0.546    1  0.734
ACES      26 14 3308 3263  0.023 19.679    2  0.350    2  0.367    5  0.175    2 0.5352    5  3.650    6  0.239    6  0.112
MERCURY   24 14 3160 3042  0.045 18.699    4  0.320    3  0.332    4  0.226    3 0.5332    6  3.637    7  0.232    5  0.219
STORM     21 19 3300 3207  0.034 19.655    7  0.077    7  0.078    6  0.167    7 0.5074    8  3.616    8  0.081    4  0.253
VALKYRIES 19 18 2898 2872 -0.012 17.765    8  0.012    8  0.014    8  0.041    8 0.5027   13  3.532   10 -0.399    3  0.481
SPARKS    17 20 3183 3266 -0.007 18.315    9 -0.103    9 -0.090    9 -0.165    9 0.4907    1  3.751    4  0.352   12 -0.681
WINGS      9 31 3269 3524  0.009 20.586   13 -0.599   13 -0.614   11 -0.487   13 0.4378    2  3.710    9 -0.156   13 -0.818

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     25 14 3254 3008  0.037 18.613    3  0.331    4  0.318    2  0.533    4 0.5319   11  3.598    3  0.368    2  0.699
LIBERTY   24 15 3342 3160  0.040 18.830    5  0.264    5  0.261    3  0.265    5 0.5276    3  3.679    2  0.455    7  0.074
FEVER     22 18 3392 3271 -0.015 18.778    6  0.093    6  0.088    7  0.155    6 0.5083    4  3.664    5  0.278    8  0.032
MYSTICS   16 23 3054 3165 -0.041 18.999   10 -0.226   10 -0.219   10 -0.306   10 0.4770   12  3.583   11 -0.533    9 -0.078
SUN       10 28 2906 3248 -0.038 19.117   11 -0.549   11 -0.538   12 -0.530   11 0.4432   10  3.608   12 -0.651   10 -0.408
SKY        9 29 2888 3274 -0.002 19.928   12 -0.588   12 -0.578   13 -0.733   12 0.4397    7  3.620   13 -0.800   11 -0.666

DIVISION             W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 146 125 0.539    1  0.102
EASTERN CONFERENCE 106 127 0.455    2 -0.119

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.309 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: Sat Aug 30 05:30:17 2025
games through: Fri Aug 29 2025

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