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      18  6 2174 1961  0.029 11.779    1  0.480    1  0.463    1  0.519    1 0.5570    5  3.710    2  0.639    3  0.399
VALKYRIES 17  7 1967 1828  0.088 12.462    2  0.445    2  0.445    2  0.444    2 0.5525   15  3.525   10 -0.235    1  1.122
ACES      17  8 2243 2155  0.051 12.862    3  0.374    3  0.379    5  0.251    3 0.5455    4  3.727    3  0.448    7  0.054
WINGS     16  8 2147 2049  0.078 12.519    4  0.365    4  0.358    4  0.292    4 0.5427    8  3.701    4  0.371    4  0.213
DREAM     14 10 2119 2034  0.076 12.556    5  0.215    5  0.192    6  0.216    5 0.5256    6  3.708    5  0.328    6  0.104
FEVER     14  9 2162 2048 -0.032 11.057    6  0.185    6  0.159    3  0.303    6 0.5249    1  3.793    1  0.808   11 -0.202
LIBERTY   14 11 2201 2112 -0.028 12.143    7  0.101    7  0.071    7  0.182    7 0.5141    9  3.700    7  0.259    5  0.105
MYSTICS   11 10 1706 1769 -0.034 10.713    8  0.020    8  0.035    8 -0.197    8 0.5010   14  3.543   15 -0.800    2  0.405
SPARKS    10 12 1962 2059 -0.031 11.316    9 -0.100    9 -0.094   12 -0.280    9 0.4885    3  3.778    8  0.154   15 -0.715
FIRE      10 13 1952 2098 -0.048 11.828   10 -0.139   10 -0.127   15 -0.406   10 0.4803   10  3.692   11 -0.369   13 -0.443
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
TEMPO     10 13 2064 2117 -0.109 10.994   11 -0.198   11 -0.197   10 -0.216   11 0.4760    2  3.790    6  0.272   14 -0.704
MERCURY    8 17 2082 2182  0.069 13.753   12 -0.291   12 -0.297   11 -0.220   12 0.4634   11  3.644   12 -0.392    8 -0.049
SKY        7 16 1987 2063  0.007 12.100   13 -0.342   13 -0.353    9 -0.206   13 0.4589    7  3.707    9 -0.101   12 -0.311
STORM      6 19 2000 2128 -0.118 12.150   14 -0.556   15 -0.578   14 -0.398   14 0.4335   12  3.617   13 -0.688   10 -0.107
SUN        5 18 1823 1986 -0.070 11.764   15 -0.558   14 -0.567   13 -0.382   15 0.4317   13  3.613   14 -0.691    9 -0.074

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      18  6 2174 1961  0.029 11.779    1  0.480    1  0.463    1  0.519    1 0.5570    5  3.710    2  0.639    3  0.399
VALKYRIES 17  7 1967 1828  0.088 12.462    2  0.445    2  0.445    2  0.444    2 0.5525   15  3.525   10 -0.235    1  1.122
ACES      17  8 2243 2155  0.051 12.862    3  0.374    3  0.379    5  0.251    3 0.5455    4  3.727    3  0.448    7  0.054
WINGS     16  8 2147 2049  0.078 12.519    4  0.365    4  0.358    4  0.292    4 0.5427    8  3.701    4  0.371    4  0.213
SPARKS    10 12 1962 2059 -0.031 11.316    9 -0.100    9 -0.094   12 -0.280    9 0.4885    3  3.778    8  0.154   15 -0.715
FIRE      10 13 1952 2098 -0.048 11.828   10 -0.139   10 -0.127   15 -0.406   10 0.4803   10  3.692   11 -0.369   13 -0.443
MERCURY    8 17 2082 2182  0.069 13.753   12 -0.291   12 -0.297   11 -0.220   12 0.4634   11  3.644   12 -0.392    8 -0.049
STORM      6 19 2000 2128 -0.118 12.150   14 -0.556   15 -0.578   14 -0.398   14 0.4335   12  3.617   13 -0.688   10 -0.107

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     14 10 2119 2034  0.076 12.556    5  0.215    5  0.192    6  0.216    5 0.5256    6  3.708    5  0.328    6  0.104
FEVER     14  9 2162 2048 -0.032 11.057    6  0.185    6  0.159    3  0.303    6 0.5249    1  3.793    1  0.808   11 -0.202
LIBERTY   14 11 2201 2112 -0.028 12.143    7  0.101    7  0.071    7  0.182    7 0.5141    9  3.700    7  0.259    5  0.105
MYSTICS   11 10 1706 1769 -0.034 10.713    8  0.020    8  0.035    8 -0.197    8 0.5010   14  3.543   15 -0.800    2  0.405
TEMPO     10 13 2064 2117 -0.109 10.994   11 -0.198   11 -0.197   10 -0.216   11 0.4760    2  3.790    6  0.272   14 -0.704
SKY        7 16 1987 2063  0.007 12.100   13 -0.342   13 -0.353    9 -0.206   13 0.4589    7  3.707    9 -0.101   12 -0.311
SUN        5 18 1823 1986 -0.070 11.764   15 -0.558   14 -0.567   13 -0.382   15 0.4317   13  3.613   14 -0.691    9 -0.074

DIVISION             W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 102  90 0.531    1  0.042
EASTERN CONFERENCE  75  87 0.463    2 -0.070

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.337 points in main ratings (0.226 for semineutral)
     0.035 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 14 05:30:05 2026
games through: Mon Jul 13 2026

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.