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It’s no secret that Wednesday was unofficially “Sherron Collins Day” on KUSports.com. Videos, photos and stories of Collins’ four years as a Jayhawk were shared over the Web by fans across the country as we all prepared for Senior Night at Allen Fieldhouse.

Members of the Twitter community took it upon themselves to celebrate Collins in their own way by attempting to make his name a trending topic. As of last count (at 8:55 a.m.) the effort had generated 2,262 shout outs to No. 4.

The first tweet using #sherroncollins came at 7:57 a.m. from 610 Sports, followed by the idea to make the hashtag a trending topic at 8:48 a.m. The graph below shows how the hashtag’s use skyrocketed throughout the day, peaking in the 9 p.m. hour with 449 tweets. The image above is from trendsmap.com (a fun Web site for checking local trending topics). The screenshot was taken at 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday, long before #sherroncollins saw its heaviest use.

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The hashtag grew so popular, it rivaled the use of #kubball and crushed #rcjhgku. The graph below shows the use of #kubball, #rcjhgku and #sherroncollins in the past 24 hours.

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It’s also worth noting that Twitter activity related to KU basketball is growing fast. Last night we saw thousands more tweets than we have seen the entire season. The graph below (showing only the last 30 days) proves this.

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Are fans starting to rally because March Madness is nearly here, or are more people using Twitter? Our data shows that individual accounts tweeting about KU basketball have increased 270% since Saturday’s game against Oklahoma State.

Throughout the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments, we’ll be looking for more ways to get fans involved with our Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well has posting fan photos on KUSports.com. Don’t hesitate to @reply us with links to photos/videos and to post content on our Facebook wall throughout the tournaments. We’re looking for them, and we’d love to share them. Look for more details on these projects in the next few days!