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      17  3 1678 1481 -0.047  8.381    1  0.712    1  0.754    1  0.603    1 0.5716   12  3.560    5  0.311    1  0.896
LIBERTY   12  6 1560 1436  0.110  8.757    2  0.415    3  0.421    2  0.465    4 0.5404    3  3.685    1  0.713    7  0.217
STORM     12  7 1563 1506  0.185 10.101    3  0.409    2  0.427    6  0.326    3 0.5427    7  3.622    6  0.301    5  0.350
MERCURY   13  6 1612 1518  0.021  8.732    4  0.387    4  0.402    5  0.331    2 0.5431    5  3.650    2  0.425    6  0.237
DREAM     12  7 1603 1495  0.031  8.679    5  0.232    5  0.231    3  0.388    5 0.5224    6  3.627    3  0.382    4  0.394
VALKYRIES  9  9 1424 1407  0.125  9.279    6  0.080    6  0.086    7  0.195    6 0.5061   13  3.549    9 -0.141    2  0.531
FEVER     10  9 1587 1483  0.017  8.580    7  0.015    7  0.003    4  0.361    7 0.4997    8  3.620    4  0.326    3  0.396
ACES       9  9 1434 1461 -0.069  8.433    8 -0.062    8 -0.024    9 -0.192    8 0.4959    9  3.615   10 -0.250    9 -0.135
MYSTICS    8 10 1421 1453  0.034  9.106    9 -0.093    9 -0.063    8 -0.133    9 0.4869   11  3.590   11 -0.297    8  0.030
SPARKS     6 13 1558 1652  0.100 10.138   10 -0.316   10 -0.309   10 -0.273   10 0.4654    1  3.705    7  0.066   11 -0.612
TEAM       W  L   PF   PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
SKY        5 12 1336 1483 -0.022  8.783   11 -0.450   11 -0.422   12 -0.547   12 0.4483    4  3.652   12 -0.443   12 -0.652
WINGS      6 14 1637 1718 -0.023  9.921   12 -0.453   12 -0.447   11 -0.281   11 0.4567    2  3.692    8  0.002   10 -0.563
SUN        2 16 1276 1596 -0.057  9.452   13 -0.875   13 -0.845   13 -1.293   13 0.4107   10  3.597   13 -1.428   13 -1.158

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      17  3 1678 1481 -0.047  8.381    1  0.712    1  0.754    1  0.603    1 0.5716   12  3.560    5  0.311    1  0.896
STORM     12  7 1563 1506  0.185 10.101    3  0.409    2  0.427    6  0.326    3 0.5427    7  3.622    6  0.301    5  0.350
MERCURY   13  6 1612 1518  0.021  8.732    4  0.387    4  0.402    5  0.331    2 0.5431    5  3.650    2  0.425    6  0.237
VALKYRIES  9  9 1424 1407  0.125  9.279    6  0.080    6  0.086    7  0.195    6 0.5061   13  3.549    9 -0.141    2  0.531
ACES       9  9 1434 1461 -0.069  8.433    8 -0.062    8 -0.024    9 -0.192    8 0.4959    9  3.615   10 -0.250    9 -0.135
SPARKS     6 13 1558 1652  0.100 10.138   10 -0.316   10 -0.309   10 -0.273   10 0.4654    1  3.705    7  0.066   11 -0.612
WINGS      6 14 1637 1718 -0.023  9.921   12 -0.453   12 -0.447   11 -0.281   11 0.4567    2  3.692    8  0.002   10 -0.563

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   12  6 1560 1436  0.110  8.757    2  0.415    3  0.421    2  0.465    4 0.5404    3  3.685    1  0.713    7  0.217
DREAM     12  7 1603 1495  0.031  8.679    5  0.232    5  0.231    3  0.388    5 0.5224    6  3.627    3  0.382    4  0.394
FEVER     10  9 1587 1483  0.017  8.580    7  0.015    7  0.003    4  0.361    7 0.4997    8  3.620    4  0.326    3  0.396
MYSTICS    8 10 1421 1453  0.034  9.106    9 -0.093    9 -0.063    8 -0.133    9 0.4869   11  3.590   11 -0.297    8  0.030
SKY        5 12 1336 1483 -0.022  8.783   11 -0.450   11 -0.422   12 -0.547   12 0.4483    4  3.652   12 -0.443   12 -0.652
SUN        2 16 1276 1596 -0.057  9.452   13 -0.875   13 -0.845   13 -1.293   13 0.4107   10  3.597   13 -1.428   13 -1.158

DIVISION            W  L   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 72 61 0.541    1  0.117
EASTERN CONFERENCE 49 60 0.450    2 -0.101

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.312 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  8 05:30:06 2025
games through: Mon Jul  7 2025

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.