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      26  6 2759 2423 -0.037 14.137    1  0.637    1  0.658    1  0.724    1 0.5679   10  3.606    1  0.605    1  0.843
LIBERTY   20 10 2607 2425  0.017 14.189    2  0.343    2  0.345    3  0.345    2 0.5354    3  3.690    2  0.593    7  0.096
MERCURY   19 11 2511 2391  0.071 14.909    3  0.332    3  0.342    4  0.339    3 0.5331    6  3.638    4  0.357    4  0.321
DREAM     19 11 2538 2356  0.009 14.004    4  0.273    4  0.261    2  0.459    4 0.5270    7  3.630    3  0.443    2  0.475
FEVER     19 14 2784 2667 -0.018 15.451    5  0.141    5  0.139    5  0.186    5 0.5137    5  3.652    6  0.265    6  0.108
ACES      17 14 2531 2567  0.026 15.624    6  0.114    6  0.139    8 -0.039    6 0.5116    4  3.656    7  0.059    9 -0.137
STORM     16 15 2531 2461  0.008 15.022    7  0.041    7  0.031    6  0.101    7 0.5028   11  3.595    9 -0.069    5  0.271
VALKYRIES 15 15 2330 2334  0.011 14.831    8  0.004    8  0.002    7 -0.020    8 0.5012   13  3.523   11 -0.489    3  0.449
SPARKS    14 16 2569 2631 -0.013 14.912    9 -0.086    9 -0.074    9 -0.152    9 0.4939    1  3.744    5  0.339   12 -0.643
MYSTICS   13 17 2346 2418 -0.007 15.034   10 -0.144   10 -0.131   10 -0.205   10 0.4850   12  3.575   10 -0.458    8  0.049
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SKY        8 23 2351 2678  0.069 17.159   11 -0.486   11 -0.456   12 -0.706   11 0.4492    8  3.619   12 -0.771   11 -0.640
WINGS      8 23 2533 2683  0.040 16.299   12 -0.490   12 -0.499   11 -0.278   12 0.4473    2  3.693    8 -0.016   10 -0.539
SUN        5 24 2178 2534  0.032 15.598   13 -0.677   13 -0.669   13 -0.743   13 0.4266    9  3.619   13 -0.810   13 -0.676

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      26  6 2759 2423 -0.037 14.137    1  0.637    1  0.658    1  0.724    1 0.5679   10  3.606    1  0.605    1  0.843
MERCURY   19 11 2511 2391  0.071 14.909    3  0.332    3  0.342    4  0.339    3 0.5331    6  3.638    4  0.357    4  0.321
ACES      17 14 2531 2567  0.026 15.624    6  0.114    6  0.139    8 -0.039    6 0.5116    4  3.656    7  0.059    9 -0.137
STORM     16 15 2531 2461  0.008 15.022    7  0.041    7  0.031    6  0.101    7 0.5028   11  3.595    9 -0.069    5  0.271
VALKYRIES 15 15 2330 2334  0.011 14.831    8  0.004    8  0.002    7 -0.020    8 0.5012   13  3.523   11 -0.489    3  0.449
SPARKS    14 16 2569 2631 -0.013 14.912    9 -0.086    9 -0.074    9 -0.152    9 0.4939    1  3.744    5  0.339   12 -0.643
WINGS      8 23 2533 2683  0.040 16.299   12 -0.490   12 -0.499   11 -0.278   12 0.4473    2  3.693    8 -0.016   10 -0.539

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   20 10 2607 2425  0.017 14.189    2  0.343    2  0.345    3  0.345    2 0.5354    3  3.690    2  0.593    7  0.096
DREAM     19 11 2538 2356  0.009 14.004    4  0.273    4  0.261    2  0.459    4 0.5270    7  3.630    3  0.443    2  0.475
FEVER     19 14 2784 2667 -0.018 15.451    5  0.141    5  0.139    5  0.186    5 0.5137    5  3.652    6  0.265    6  0.108
MYSTICS   13 17 2346 2418 -0.007 15.034   10 -0.144   10 -0.131   10 -0.205   10 0.4850   12  3.575   10 -0.458    8  0.049
SKY        8 23 2351 2678  0.069 17.159   11 -0.486   11 -0.456   12 -0.706   11 0.4492    8  3.619   12 -0.771   11 -0.640
SUN        5 24 2178 2534  0.032 15.598   13 -0.677   13 -0.669   13 -0.743   13 0.4266    9  3.619   13 -0.810   13 -0.676

DIVISION             W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 115 100 0.535    1  0.106
EASTERN CONFERENCE  84  99 0.459    2 -0.118

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: Sun Aug 10 05:30:12 2025
games through: Sat Aug  9 2025

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