You made one decent point that entire post, and I'll get to it in a second. All of the "they're adults" stuff is crap. Of course they can take it (although arguing that 18- to 21-year old non-scholarhsip athletes can "take it" is pretty weak, too). It has nothing to do with their psyche. It's not the losing team I care about. There's a certain respect that should be shown by the winning team. That goes for everything, life included. It's a way I live my life and I'm not persuaded by a "they can take it" mantra. I think that attitude reeks of entitlement and a lack of respect for the people around you. Sure, maybe they can take it, but that's not the point.
And your Patriots is example is poor. Teams were ****** when Schiano had his players try to force fumbles on kneel downs. Players get hit for stealing up big late in games or bunting to break up no-hitters. Hard fouls happen when NBA players are showboating late in blowouts. And to be honest, I usually side with the Schianos, base stealers, and showboaters. Those guys are professionals, and they get paid to play better than they are playing. But there's something different about intentionally running up the score on D3 players who aren't getting paid in any way to play that bugs me.
The one good point you make is that the players involved don't seem to mind. Except...you have no idea if that's true. My guess is that plenty of those players mind, and they strongly dislike Grinnell for that reason. But it's midwest D3 basketball, and there aren't a lot of press conferences to discuss their feelings. Or maybe they would be smart enough to not say anything anyway, I don't know. But neither of us have any idea if these kids care, so while I think you'd have a good point if what you said was true, I think you're probably wrong about that.