One Shining Moment is Not About Your Bracket

Personally, I find brackets and people's obsession with them to be the most annoying thing about the NCAA tournament.  It's a celebration of the game, its greatness, and the beauty of it.  It's a celebration of contrasting play styles , of contrasting coaching styles, and of contrasting fan bases.  It's a coronation of superstars, it's a coming out party for the unknown workhorse of a good team no one ever sees. It's about the underdog rising to things they never once dreamed of and about watching the favorites rise to the expectations of the nation.  It is not, however, about one's 15 minute attempt to predict the actions of 18-22 year old kids in an effort to show their superior sports "knowledge".
I greatly appreciated the fans assembled in San Jose for the NCAA tournament who showed a complete appreciation for the greatness of the performances of underdogs.  There were no misplaced boos of bracket sadness as Ali Farokhmanesh put the gutsy dagger in during the most spectacular upset in recent tournament history.  There was no happiness when Villanova finally defeated the upstart Robert Morris.  There was nothing but happiness as Omar Samhan's dominating performance sent home one of my personal Final Four teams.
I understand that this whole bracket madness opens up the game to more people and at least to some small extent gets non-fans engaged in the game.  I understand that some people actually are making well-reasoned selections.  I further understand that the NCAA tournament and its one and done format is particularly well-suited to such a competition.  Unfortunately, that still means nothing to me.  This bracket madness is a blight on the game which I sadly think is here to stay.  The tournament is about the game and everything else is just, well, madness to me.
I've forever been annoyed by people who, for instance, down the stretch of a nearly unprecedented (4 times so) Robert Morris over Villanova win are running around screaming..."Oh noes...my brackets!"  Guess what...no one cares about your bracket.  It doesn't matter.  The ONLY time that I'm ok with someone being upset about their bracket is win they're upset about something that isn't chalk.  You picked the 2 over the 15, really ?  I'm surprised.  That makes you neither special nor a basketball genius.  It simply means you realize that 2 is a higher seed than 15.  Embrace history, embrace the spectacular, for THAT is what the tournament is about.  One Shining Moment is about the players, the teams, and the coaches...not about your bracket.