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 16 3446 3315 -0.020 21.543    1  0.291    1  0.291    6  0.151    1 0.5310    5  3.523    5  0.078    4  0.224
LIBERTY  26 17 3183 3100  0.078 21.855    2  0.265    2  0.262    4  0.206    2 0.5294   11  3.472    7 -0.075    1  0.488
FEVER    27 20 3599 3538  0.115 24.626    3  0.237    3  0.229    2  0.221    3 0.5267    4  3.574    3  0.360    5  0.082
SKY      24 16 3308 3131  0.035 19.102    4  0.219    4  0.192    3  0.209    4 0.5228    1  3.688    1  0.843   10 -0.425
MYSTICS  21 19 2971 2864  0.092 20.443    5  0.132    5  0.102    5  0.162    5 0.5135   12  3.470    9 -0.127    3  0.451
MERCURY  23 17 3003 2865 -0.062 18.076    6  0.111    6  0.083    1  0.227    6 0.5111    9  3.484    6 -0.007    2  0.462
SHOCK    20 18 2924 2921 -0.085 17.356    7 -0.007    7 -0.009   10 -0.160    7 0.4971    3  3.616    4  0.156   12 -0.476
DREAM    16 20 2785 2863  0.058 18.577    8 -0.054    8 -0.056    7 -0.015    8 0.4916    2  3.642    2  0.417   11 -0.447
SUN      17 20 2769 2802  0.041 18.384    9 -0.055    9 -0.061    9 -0.128    9 0.4907    8  3.515   10 -0.236    7 -0.020
SPARKS   17 22 2869 2888 -0.037 18.607   10 -0.140   10 -0.154    8 -0.015   10 0.4825    6  3.519    8 -0.108    6  0.077
TEAM      W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
STORM    11 25 2540 2724 -0.079 17.396   11 -0.413   11 -0.430   11 -0.359   11 0.4496    7  3.518   11 -0.453    8 -0.265
STARS     8 28 2436 2768 -0.080 17.586   12 -0.586   12 -0.595   12 -0.662   12 0.4295   10  3.475   12 -0.931    9 -0.393
UNRANKED  0  2  124  178 -0.654  1.317      -1.000      -1.000      -2.131      0.4106       3.531      -2.173      -2.088

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 16 3446 3315 -0.020 21.543    1  0.291    1  0.291    6  0.151    1 0.5310    5  3.523    5  0.078    4  0.224
MERCURY  23 17 3003 2865 -0.062 18.076    6  0.111    6  0.083    1  0.227    6 0.5111    9  3.484    6 -0.007    2  0.462
SHOCK    20 18 2924 2921 -0.085 17.356    7 -0.007    7 -0.009   10 -0.160    7 0.4971    3  3.616    4  0.156   12 -0.476
SPARKS   17 22 2869 2888 -0.037 18.607   10 -0.140   10 -0.154    8 -0.015   10 0.4825    6  3.519    8 -0.108    6  0.077
STORM    11 25 2540 2724 -0.079 17.396   11 -0.413   11 -0.430   11 -0.359   11 0.4496    7  3.518   11 -0.453    8 -0.265
STARS     8 28 2436 2768 -0.080 17.586   12 -0.586   12 -0.595   12 -0.662   12 0.4295   10  3.475   12 -0.931    9 -0.393

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  26 17 3183 3100  0.078 21.855    2  0.265    2  0.262    4  0.206    2 0.5294   11  3.472    7 -0.075    1  0.488
FEVER    27 20 3599 3538  0.115 24.626    3  0.237    3  0.229    2  0.221    3 0.5267    4  3.574    3  0.360    5  0.082
SKY      24 16 3308 3131  0.035 19.102    4  0.219    4  0.192    3  0.209    4 0.5228    1  3.688    1  0.843   10 -0.425
MYSTICS  21 19 2971 2864  0.092 20.443    5  0.132    5  0.102    5  0.162    5 0.5135   12  3.470    9 -0.127    3  0.451
DREAM    16 20 2785 2863  0.058 18.577    8 -0.054    8 -0.056    7 -0.015    8 0.4916    2  3.642    2  0.417   11 -0.447
SUN      17 20 2769 2802  0.041 18.384    9 -0.055    9 -0.061    9 -0.128    9 0.4907    8  3.515   10 -0.236    7 -0.020

DIVISION             W   L   PCT  RNK RATING
EASTERN CONFERENCE 131 112 0.539    1  0.154
WESTERN CONFERENCE 109 126 0.464    2 -0.184

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.323 points in main ratings (0.226 for semineutral)
     0.029 points in improved RPI (0.023 for semineutral)
Average of 2.15 points per score

Predict score:








Team Strength vs. Time Plot:






posted: Sat Jul 25 18:34:18 2020
games through: Wed Oct 14 2015

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