Basketball: Women's

Why am I ranking the Twitter accounts of the Lady Lions, you ask?

Good question.

Anyway, there are many ways to determine the strength of someone’s Twitter presence. After minutes and minutes of thinking, this is what I came up with. I call it…the Gilbertian Twitter Theorem.
(follower-to-following ratio) + (number of tweets * 0.0001) + (.25 if their account is protected) + (1 if they follow @TimGilb)

Obviously, follower-to-following ratio is the most important aspect of someone’s Twitter. Any of us can get 1,000 followers by following 3,000 people, but you need a good ratio as proof that people want to follow you. So there’s a good deal of weight on that.

Of course, you deserve credit for being an active tweeter. However, I had to multiply the number of tweets per account by 0.0001 so that it doesn’t have more weight than follower-to-following ratio.

Now, if your account is protected, you’re going to have fewer followers since you have to approve all of them. Clearly, you aren’t on Twitter for the followers if that’s the case and probably shouldn’t even be considered in these rankings (but that isn’t stopping me). To make a feeble attempt at adding fairness to these rankings, I’ll give the Lady Lions with protected accounts an extra .25.

And since I’m the one making these rankings, I’ll throw the Lady Lions that follow @TimGilb a whole extra point. They deserve it.

Is this equation fair? Of course not! Judging by how I grabbed numbers out of thin air and give a whole point for whether or not they follow me, these rankings should not be taken seriously…at all. I’m just having a little fun here.

So, without further ado, your 2011-12 Lady Lions by Twitter accounts (the number in parentheses is their score, and all statistics are as of Tuesday night at 10 p.m.):

1. Maggie Lucas (@MaggieLucas33; 3.2538)
The breakdown: 803 followers, 261 followed, 1,772 tweets (3.0766 + .1772)
It makes sense that the Lady Lions’ most prolific scorer has the best ratio. She’s also one of the more active Tweeters on this list, and therefore takes the cake.

2. Zhaque Gray (@Godexample; 2.3935)
The breakdown: 167 followers, 95 followers, 3,857 tweets, protected account (1.7578 + .3857 + .25)
The lone senior on the team, who is more commonly known as ZhaZha, maintains a very solid ratio despite having a protected account. Props.

3. Dara Taylor (@d_taylor; 2.3428)
The breakdown: 402 followers, 438 followed, 1,750 tweets, protected account, follows @TimGilb (0.9178 + .1750 + .25 + 1)
See that? A follow of @TimGilb can earn you some serious love on this list. Taylor, who is ineligible this year after transferring from Maryland, hasn’t played a minute and still clocks in at number three.

4. Talia East (@teast5; 2.2060)
The breakdown: 295 followers, 395 followed, 2,092 tweets, protected account, follows @TimGilb (0.7468 + .2092 + .25 + 1)
East and Taylor don’t even have positive ratios and they’re still third and fourth on this list, respectively, because they follow @TimGilb. This is totally fair.

5. Tori Waldner (@ToriWaldner44; 1.7783)
The breakdown: 247 followers, 154 followed, 1,744 tweets (1.6039 + .1744)
Waldner owns a very solid ratio, especially for a freshman who’s yet to start a game.

6. Gizelle Studevent (@BellaLatina25; 1.7308)
The breakdown: 298 followers, 243 followed, 5,045 tweets (1.2263 + .5045)
Studevent tweets quite a lot and has a solid ratio.

7. Mia Nickson (@SwiftNick24; 1.1903)
The breakdown: 119 followers, 103 followed, 350 tweets (1.1553 + .035)
Keeping the ratio down is a popular way to tweet, as Nickson does.

8. Nikki Greene (@XxNik_NakxX; 1.0261)
The breakdown: 106 followers, 141 followed, 243 tweets (0.7517 + .0243 + .25)
Clearly, Greene isn’t a big Twitter user.

Alex Bentley, Marisa Wolfe and Ariel Edwards couldn’t be found on Twitter, and therefore receive only honorable mentions on this list.

Finally, would a Lady Lions’ social media article be complete without mentioning the Twitter account of their sports information director, Kris Petersen?

@ladylionsid comes in with a score of 5.8276 (629 followers, 117 followed, 4,515 tweets). She pretty much tips the scale.

So, there you have it. See where you fall on this list if you feel like it. Or, if you think you have a better way to rank Twitter accounts…well, you probably do.