So my bracket is busted. Just like everybody else’s. I’m still waiting for someone who put Wichita State in the Final Four— what a shocker, eh?

But really, should we be surprised? This happens every year. 

Last year wasn’t as bad, with a four seed as the lowest in the Final Four. But 2011. Butler in the championship, VC-who in the Final Four and the highest seed there was a No. 3. Now, that was wack. But that’s what’s supposed to happen, that’s what makes it March Madness. There’s a special thrill of seeing the impossible happen, rooting for the Cinderella story, and watching No. 1 seeds crumble.

I get it and I like it. 

But bracket challenges, build up excitement but then ruin everything. People get so pumped about their brackets and the competition and then lose energy as the tournament continues when the games get better and more exciting to watch.

What’s the point in making brackets when the odds of getting it completely correct are something like 1-in-100 million trillion? There is no point.

I’d have better luck trying the Powerball, going to the horseraces, or betting on who the new pope was going to be — though I have lost in all three of those instances this year.

I don’t understand the addictive allure of filling out brackets, which explains the complacent attitude in which I filled my three brackets out this year, which explains my nearly last-place standings in every pool I entered in. One may ask why I filled out so many, and it’s because there’s some societal standard that everybody has to fill out a bracket. And I’m all about living up to social norms, of course.

Bracket challenges make the competition not about the athletes, but about individual people fighting for money and bragging rights. People spend more time checking their bracket then actually watching basketball.

And people fill out the brackets with absolutely no knowledge of sports, using mascots, logos and astrology to fill out their brackets for them. There are even online guides for how to fill out your bracket if you can’t care less. Also, with the addition of online brackets you could probably fill out 800 if you were crazy enough. And that just completely exploits everything, which is an argument to be saved for another day.

Now I like the idea of bracketology, it just doesn’t work for college basketball. Take pop culture brackets, which seemingly came after the basketball ones and have been spreading like wildfire—all credit goes to The Daily Illini’s March Movie Madness of course, are better because people can intelligently debate matchups and come to a logical conclusion.

You can’t do that in basketball, thanks to the unpredictability of sports. You shouldn’t be arguing about which team is better in advance, but instead rooting for the story, the athletes and the final buzzer beater shots.

People would still get excited about March Madness without the brackets. It’s college basketball, where you’re witnessing raw talent before players have their souls and spirits sucked out by agents and drafts and contracts. I’d even go so far to call it the epitome of basketball.

The NCAA sets us up to lose in these bracket challenges, and it makes us look like a bunch of fools. It’s like we’re animals in the zoo and the selection committee is on the other side of the window laughing at us. It’s time to rise above this crap.

Grantland writer Shane Ryan proposed a 256-team playoff system  beginning in December. And even though the idea of a best-of-11 format makes me dizzy, I’d still like to endorse it. Anything would be better than what we have now. And there’s even a petition to Congress about it, which you can fill out online.  Ryan also proposed that everybody burns their brackets, which is a little hard since the majority of everybody fills them out online nowadays.  My idea is that a bracket boycott begins next year. Don’t fill out a bracket, even if your life depends on it. I don’t care if you have 800 e-mails in your inbox begging you to fill one out, if you have the possibility of winning 800 million dollars, or 800 pink ponies. Just don’t do it.

The madness will continue, bracket challenges or not. 

Emily is a graduate student. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @EmilyBayci.