The Problem with Elimination Tournaments

I wonder if I'm becomming soft. Watching the NCAA women's (DII) tourney, I started thinking about ending seasons with single elimination tournaments. Basically, all of the seniors on these good basketball teams (except one team) end their careers with a loss. Which is the way it goes, but suddenly it bothers me. You could see the desperation on some of these other players, particularly the seniors, as they realized they were going down. One team hadn't expected to make the tournament (the 7 seed out of 8 in our region), already played well above seed, knocking off the 2 team, and then lost decidedly to a better team. Their career was generally ending way better than anyone expected, but the actual end they would remember will be a bitter and decisive loss.
Of course, we're sending "our girls" off to Kearney next week (and I'm all upset about changes to schedules, make-up exams and job searches) and I so want them to win. Win it all. A lot of it is that they can; they really are one of the very best teams in the country (ranked #2 overall, so it's not just me); a lot of it is local pride (little tiny, middle of nowhere Glenville State College will have to defeat UC San Diego [and Drury University] to make it big); and a lot of it is that I just don't want our girls, particularly our seniors, to end basketball life with a loss.