Illinois Coach Brad Underwood Doesn't Buy Big Ten 'Cross-Country Travel' Excuse

College sports have gotten a little weird recently.

Some athletes are making more than most of their assistant coaches in both football and basketball thanks to NIL, and fans are lucky to have their favorite players on campus for a semester before they are off to greener pastures.

One unpopular aspect of the "new era" of college sports that has flown a bit under the radar, though, is conference realignment and all the negative side effects that come with it.

Take the Big Ten, for example.

Back in the heyday of college football and basketball, the Big Ten Conference consisted solely of Midwestern teams.

Then, Rutgers and Maryland joined the fray, and soon after that, the conference had teams from sea to shining sea thanks to the additions of schools like Oregon and USC.

The travel schedule alone has become somewhat of an obstacle for certain teams in both football and basketball, with notable detractors like USC football coach Lincoln Riley bemoaning the wild start times.

One coach who is having none of that, though, is Illinois basketball coach Brad Underwood.

After his top-ten Illini squad beat the breaks off of the USC Trojans in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, Underwood made sure to let everyone know he doesn't give a rat's ass about your cross-country travel excuses.

You gotta love Brad Underwood, man!

What a throwback of a basketball coach! He doesn't give a damn about having to travel to Southern California on a Wednesday night.

"We're spoiled, we charter. We have great food, we stay in nice places. It's really not that hard."

He has a point.

There are guys on his roster making more money than most of you reading this right now. The least they could do is get on a four and a half hour plane ride and be expected to do their jobs.

As many have pointed out in the comments section, this may have been a shot at UCLA coach Mick Cronin, who, much like fellow aforementioned Los Angeles area coach Riley, had a rant about the rigors of Big Ten travel a little more than a year ago.

Cronin had his own issues with the press recently, so it's interesting Underwood chose to poke the bear with a subtle shot like that, but his point remains.

These are, to put it mildly, semi-professional athletes we are talking about now.

Yes, the travel sucks, but great coaches and teams — like Underwood and Illinois — put the excuses behind them and just win.

Kudos to Brad Underwood, he gets it.