Hoops analyst Seth Greenberg expands on handshake line take following Michigan-Wisconsin scrum

ESPN college basketball analyst and former Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg took to Twitter on Monday morning to expand on his thoughts about the postgame handshake line. After his appearance on ESPN’s Get Up, Greenberg said that he doesn’t believe the handshake line should fall victim to a select fews’ inability to handle their emotions.

“I’ve been giving this handshake like conversation some thought and you know what, I’ve changed my mind,” Greenberg said. “When you think about the lessons you learn from sport, lessons, like working with others, embracing a role, stick-to-itiveness, dealing with adversity – all the things that you’re going to deal with in real life – part of that, is the handshake line.

“Basically, reflecting good sportsmanship. Understanding the ability to, win or loss, how to handle success and failure. Also, respect. Respect the game, respect the competition.”

After reflection my take on the handshake line. pic.twitter.com/kuCx21R451

— Seth Greenberg (@SethOnHoops) February 21, 2022

“If you’re going to compete, there’s going to be a winner and loser,” Greenberg continued. “In life, you’re going to have to deal with winning and losing. Things that happen that are good for you. Things that happen that are hard to deal with in the real world. There’s nothing wrong with the handshake line. The biggest thing is that the people who are walking through are held to a standard and the people that lead, need to be held to the highest standard.”

Should college hoops do away with the handshake line?

The Michigan-Wisconsin scrum on Sunday left a lot of hoops talking heads wondering why college basketball teams still go through a postgame handshake line. Mike Greenberg hosted Jay Bilas and Seth Greenberg on ESPN’s Get Up on Monday morning to discuss the drama unfolding after Juwan Howard’s outburst.

“Shaking hands, should we do it, shouldn’t we do it, in the end, if you cannot control your emotions at the end of a game, alright, it’s about looking someone in the eye and saying let’s moving on, that’s a problem to me and I think we need to be above that,” Seth Greenberg said.

The Get Up host agreed with Greenberg about the sentiment behind the handshake line.

“I like what it represents, which is to say, good game, we competed against each other for 40 minutes and now we shake hands and walk away friends, but if it’s going to create problems like this then I certainly see people taking the other side,” Mike Greenberg said.

Jay Bilas disagrees about the meaningfulness of the postgame handshake, likening it to a Little League practice.

“I don’t care for the handshake line for a different reason, it has nothing to do with avoiding confrontation or anything like that,” Bilas said. “I used to call it the Little League handshake line. To me, if you’re taking 30 handshakes in a row, it doesn’t have as much meaning. It’s almost like you’re high-fiving everyone walking by. I get it, it’s a sportsmanship thing, but I prefer a handshake with your counterpart that has a bit more meaning. I don’t think we should even discuss getting rid of the line just because two coaches can’t behave properly. That has no meaning to me at all.”