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      19  5 2012 1807 -0.090  9.894    1  0.534    1  0.559    2  0.474    1 0.5574   11  3.569    5  0.215    1  0.732
LIBERTY   14  6 1726 1586  0.122  9.924    2  0.472    2  0.497    1  0.500    3 0.5505    3  3.673    1  0.691    5  0.308
MERCURY   15  6 1769 1666  0.040  9.867    3  0.443    3  0.473    4  0.362    2 0.5515    5  3.641    2  0.412    4  0.312
STORM     13  9 1794 1738  0.051 10.690    4  0.188    4  0.210    7  0.139    4 0.5230    9  3.612    7  0.062    7  0.216
DREAM     12  9 1757 1673  0.073 10.134    5  0.152    5  0.156    5  0.299    5 0.5137    7  3.630    4  0.302    6  0.297
FEVER     12 10 1849 1728  0.031 10.164    6  0.088    7  0.071    3  0.380    7 0.5048    8  3.630    3  0.381    3  0.379
MYSTICS   11 10 1646 1669  0.015 10.334    7  0.060    6  0.086    8 -0.085    6 0.5049   13  3.566   12 -0.359    8  0.189
VALKYRIES 10 11 1683 1650  0.134 10.865    8  0.034    8  0.038    6  0.262    8 0.5016   12  3.568    8 -0.003    2  0.526
ACES      10 11 1684 1720 -0.026 10.094    9 -0.072    9 -0.047    9 -0.151    9 0.4936    6  3.633   10 -0.134    9 -0.167
SPARKS     7 14 1732 1831  0.070 11.017   10 -0.290   10 -0.279   10 -0.285   10 0.4666    1  3.712    6  0.078   11 -0.647
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SKY        7 14 1667 1812  0.021 10.903   11 -0.330   11 -0.302   12 -0.379   11 0.4624    4  3.658   11 -0.254   10 -0.504
WINGS      6 16 1796 1907 -0.036 10.815   12 -0.498   12 -0.495   11 -0.364   12 0.4479    2  3.697    9 -0.068   12 -0.660
SUN        3 18 1522 1850 -0.028 10.867   13 -0.782   13 -0.742   13 -1.093   13 0.4174   10  3.605   13 -1.199   13 -0.987

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      19  5 2012 1807 -0.090  9.894    1  0.534    1  0.559    2  0.474    1 0.5574   11  3.569    5  0.215    1  0.732
MERCURY   15  6 1769 1666  0.040  9.867    3  0.443    3  0.473    4  0.362    2 0.5515    5  3.641    2  0.412    4  0.312
STORM     13  9 1794 1738  0.051 10.690    4  0.188    4  0.210    7  0.139    4 0.5230    9  3.612    7  0.062    7  0.216
VALKYRIES 10 11 1683 1650  0.134 10.865    8  0.034    8  0.038    6  0.262    8 0.5016   12  3.568    8 -0.003    2  0.526
ACES      10 11 1684 1720 -0.026 10.094    9 -0.072    9 -0.047    9 -0.151    9 0.4936    6  3.633   10 -0.134    9 -0.167
SPARKS     7 14 1732 1831  0.070 11.017   10 -0.290   10 -0.279   10 -0.285   10 0.4666    1  3.712    6  0.078   11 -0.647
WINGS      6 16 1796 1907 -0.036 10.815   12 -0.498   12 -0.495   11 -0.364   12 0.4479    2  3.697    9 -0.068   12 -0.660

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   14  6 1726 1586  0.122  9.924    2  0.472    2  0.497    1  0.500    3 0.5505    3  3.673    1  0.691    5  0.308
DREAM     12  9 1757 1673  0.073 10.134    5  0.152    5  0.156    5  0.299    5 0.5137    7  3.630    4  0.302    6  0.297
FEVER     12 10 1849 1728  0.031 10.164    6  0.088    7  0.071    3  0.380    7 0.5048    8  3.630    3  0.381    3  0.379
MYSTICS   11 10 1646 1669  0.015 10.334    7  0.060    6  0.086    8 -0.085    6 0.5049   13  3.566   12 -0.359    8  0.189
SKY        7 14 1667 1812  0.021 10.903   11 -0.330   11 -0.302   12 -0.379   11 0.4624    4  3.658   11 -0.254   10 -0.504
SUN        3 18 1522 1850 -0.028 10.867   13 -0.782   13 -0.742   13 -1.093   13 0.4174   10  3.605   13 -1.199   13 -0.987

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 80 72 0.526    1  0.079
EASTERN CONFERENCE 59 67 0.468    2 -0.046

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.313 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: Tue Jul 15 05:30:13 2025
games through: Mon Jul 14 2025

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