Brad Underwood is among the Big Ten coaches with a strong opinion of the fallout from Sunday’s post-game incident between Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Illinois coach was a guest on 670 The Score, and strongly defended the handshake line as some fans and media have discussed doing away with the post-game tradition.

“We need to keep the handshake line,” he said, via Jeremy Werner. “I’m an educator. …Life is competition. Sometimes the other team’s got more points, so you shake their hand, they kicked your butt and you move on.”

Underwood added that eliminating the handshake line would be “a cop-out and an excuse.”

During an earlier interview on CBS Sports Radio, Underwood said he hadn’t seen the kind of incident that played out in the Michigan-Wisconsin game. “It’s sure not good, we’re the best league in the country, year in and year out. But at the end of the day,

“It’s highly competitive and it’s unfortunate, it’s not good for the game of basketball,” he said. “But we’ve got really good people in our league office and both of those guys are competitors and really good guys.”

Underwood accepted that there’s a teaching moment for his staff out of this, and that no one is more competitive than him.

Underwood recalled an incident last season between Illinois and Michigan State where there was an ejection, but he still shook Tom Izzo’s hand.

“When I lose, I shake the other guy’s hand, I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from the game of basketball,” he said. “The game of basketball teaches us all a lot more about life than it does winning and losing a basketball game.”