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 -0.082  9.995    1  0.534    1  0.557    2  0.478    1 0.5584   12  3.568    5  0.210    1  0.746
LIBERTY   14  6 1726 1586  0.115  9.899    2  0.464    2  0.487    1  0.493    3 0.5506    3  3.673    1  0.679    5  0.307
MERCURY   15  6 1769 1666  0.048  9.954    3  0.444    3  0.475    3  0.366    2 0.5522    5  3.641    2  0.410    4  0.321
STORM     13  9 1794 1738  0.054 10.724    4  0.184    4  0.210    7  0.142    4 0.5232    9  3.612    7  0.062    7  0.223
DREAM     12  9 1757 1673  0.060 10.064    5  0.137    5  0.147    5  0.290    5 0.5135    8  3.629    4  0.284    6  0.296
FEVER     13 10 1934 1805 -0.011 10.275    6  0.088    6  0.083    4  0.337    6 0.5065    7  3.630    3  0.334    3  0.339
VALKYRIES 10 11 1683 1650  0.140 10.941    7  0.043    7  0.044    6  0.265    7 0.5027   13  3.567    8 -0.006    2  0.537
MYSTICS   11 11 1726 1768 -0.009 10.728    8  0.001    8  0.020    9 -0.171    8 0.4981   11  3.574   12 -0.412    8  0.070
ACES      10 11 1684 1720 -0.027 10.097    9 -0.062    9 -0.047    8 -0.148    9 0.4936    6  3.632   10 -0.142    9 -0.155
SPARKS     8 14 1831 1911  0.071 11.449   10 -0.224   10 -0.219   10 -0.193   10 0.4743    1  3.720    6  0.203   11 -0.590
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  0.027 10.941   11 -0.319   11 -0.294   12 -0.372   11 0.4632    4  3.657   11 -0.255   10 -0.488
WINGS      6 16 1796 1907 -0.037 10.818   12 -0.493   12 -0.490   11 -0.362   12 0.4480    2  3.696    9 -0.071   12 -0.652
SUN        3 19 1599 1935 -0.014 11.479   13 -0.797   13 -0.755   13 -1.048   13 0.4159   10  3.606   13 -1.155   13 -0.941

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 -0.082  9.995    1  0.534    1  0.557    2  0.478    1 0.5584   12  3.568    5  0.210    1  0.746
MERCURY   15  6 1769 1666  0.048  9.954    3  0.444    3  0.475    3  0.366    2 0.5522    5  3.641    2  0.410    4  0.321
STORM     13  9 1794 1738  0.054 10.724    4  0.184    4  0.210    7  0.142    4 0.5232    9  3.612    7  0.062    7  0.223
VALKYRIES 10 11 1683 1650  0.140 10.941    7  0.043    7  0.044    6  0.265    7 0.5027   13  3.567    8 -0.006    2  0.537
ACES      10 11 1684 1720 -0.027 10.097    9 -0.062    9 -0.047    8 -0.148    9 0.4936    6  3.632   10 -0.142    9 -0.155
SPARKS     8 14 1831 1911  0.071 11.449   10 -0.224   10 -0.219   10 -0.193   10 0.4743    1  3.720    6  0.203   11 -0.590
WINGS      6 16 1796 1907 -0.037 10.818   12 -0.493   12 -0.490   11 -0.362   12 0.4480    2  3.696    9 -0.071   12 -0.652

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  0.115  9.899    2  0.464    2  0.487    1  0.493    3 0.5506    3  3.673    1  0.679    5  0.307
DREAM     12  9 1757 1673  0.060 10.064    5  0.137    5  0.147    5  0.290    5 0.5135    8  3.629    4  0.284    6  0.296
FEVER     13 10 1934 1805 -0.011 10.275    6  0.088    6  0.083    4  0.337    6 0.5065    7  3.630    3  0.334    3  0.339
MYSTICS   11 11 1726 1768 -0.009 10.728    8  0.001    8  0.020    9 -0.171    8 0.4981   11  3.574   12 -0.412    8  0.070
SKY        7 14 1667 1812  0.027 10.941   11 -0.319   11 -0.294   12 -0.372   11 0.4632    4  3.657   11 -0.255   10 -0.488
SUN        3 19 1599 1935 -0.014 11.479   13 -0.797   13 -0.755   13 -1.048   13 0.4159   10  3.606   13 -1.155   13 -0.941

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 81 72 0.529    1  0.095
EASTERN CONFERENCE 60 69 0.465    2 -0.066

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: Wed Jul 16 05:30:12 2025
games through: Tue Jul 15 2025

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