Editors note: As a March tradition, The Daily Illini sports staff sits down and creates a bracket of its own. This year’s bracket is a collection of 64 sports personalities from the significant to the comical. We’ve voted for our winner, but we want you to get involved — check us out on Twitter and Facebook or in the comments section of this article on DailyIllini.com to contribute.

The regional finals have begun.

And one thing is clear in the Twittournament: The Daily Illini sports staff loves its basketball.

At least half of the Twitter accounts who advanced to the Final Four in the tournament have some connection to basketball.

The first account into the national semifinals is Yahoo Sports reporter Adrian Wojonowski (@WojYahooNBA), the NBA reporter extraordinaire, who also goes by the name of “Media Sources,” if you ask SportsCenter

(@SportsCenter). Note: We decided to use common sense, and call the second round the second round, not the third or the First Thirty-Two or whatever NCAA has it now.

Woj beat out local favorite The Champaign Room (@Champaign_Room), which is your one-stop shop for all things Illini.

This was the most highly contested of the Elite Eight: You have Woj, who’ll send you more information about the Association than one would want. Tagged with teammate Marc J. Spears, they give ESPN football reporters Adam Schefter and Chris Mortenson a run for their money as the best sports reporting tandem on the planet. Maybe next year we’ll have a bracket for that.

The Champaign Room, which is run by one of our former sportswriters Jack Cassidy, gave Woj a challenge before coming up short in its Elite Eight matchup. The Champaign Room was an underdog, but combined with its humorous commentary during Illini games and with being your definitive source for all things NIT, it gave Woj a formidable challenge.

In the other regionals, Michael Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon), who previously was highly involved in ABC’s and ESPN’s studio shows for NBA telecasts, soundly defeated Sports Illustrated media guru Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch). Although Deitsch shares many articles that make journalists “ohh” and “ahh,” Chicago native and Northwestern alumnus Wilbon was a staple Sunday afternoons of the basketball season.

Although the whole Northwestern thing was debated, Wilbon advanced because of his smart commentary, along with his sheer ability not to flood your Twitter feed with endless retweets and stories that have been posted before.

In the third region, after escaping to defeat No. 1-seeded SportsCenter in the second round, Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) advanced passed Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons). Here at DI Sports, we love when broadcasters screw up. And we laugh at them. Just take Chip Carey’s “Line drive. Base hit. Caught out there” call, which has legendary broadcaster Jack Buck rolling in his grave. This was an easy matchup for Awful Announcing, so much so it’s hard to fathom that it was an underdog. Just look at the follower differential in the matchup: More than 2.37 million tweeters. This blows away other matchups by nearly a million followers.

The final region came down to a toss-up between Brandon Paul (@BP3) and world-conquering writer Will Leitch (@williamfleitch). Paul has been a diligent tweeter throughout his Illini career and even after, while Leitch has recently offered to write a column for anyone on the topic of their choosing if they win his ESPN bracket pool. That’s pretty cool, and it earns him a spot in the Final Four.

All that remains is the Final Four, where matchups between Woj and Leitch and Wilbon and Awful Announcing remain. 

Give us your input so we can determine the true champion of tweeting about sports.

Darshan is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @drshnpatel.