Intolerable. Totally inexcusable.

Not too many people heard it but Northwestern women’s tennis coach Claire Pollard did.

“Great job for killing the bitch,” said a member of the Illinois team, following Natasha Loebnitz’s dual-clinching win over NU’s Lia Jackson Saturday.

Just how low can a team go? Wildcats vs. the Fighting Illini — supposedly, the two top-notch teams in the Big Ten this season. The two that faced each other three times last season, with NU winning two of them, including a victory in the NCAA Regionals.

A fierce enough rivalry that NU junior Colleen Cheng jokingly said she was “ready to jump off Elder” when she lost the deciding match last year against Illinois in the Cats’ only conference loss.

But Illinois crossed the line of good sportsmanship, between rivalry and hatred.

No class, whatsoever.

Rarely does Pollard remove her black Oakley sunglasses on the court. But after hearing the unthinkable remark, Pollard walked up to Illinois coach Sujay Lama with her Oakleys off and her eyes wide open.

“I told him he had a classless team — that’s what I told him. Straight up,” Pollard said. “They had no class. They had called my player a ‘bitch,’ and I just don’t appreciate the lack of class.”

Even before the comment, Illinois showed a lack of respect for its opponent. The Illini No. 3 doubles team of Natalia Manasova and Carla Rosenberg jumped, screamed and cheered after every point facing NU’s Shannon Duffy and Leigh Weinraub.

“It’d be easier to handle the loss, if they could’ve handled it a little nicer — that’s all,” Duffy said.

I hope Illinois realized that NU did not play with its full roster. Freshman No. 5 singles player Marine Piriou learned she had mononucleosis on Wednesday and will sit out for three weeks.

No NU player flat-out said they lost because of Piriou’s absence.

“She’s a major part of it,” Duffy said. “People move up because of that and (it) makes their jobs tougher. But that’s not an excuse. We had the match in hand, fought hard and unfortunately, we didn’t get it.”

Cheng also expressed her anger toward Illinois. Cheng, who was still battling in her third set when Jackson lost, could’ve forfeited her No. 3 singles match. The win wouldn’t have affected the dual outcome.

But Cheng remained on the court. Just a few feet away, the entire Illinois team acted like ignorant cheerleaders. Some of them didn’t even care to watch the match — chatting with friends and teammates about nothing. Smiling. Giggling.

“First of all, I was really pissed that Illinois was being really obnoxious ­ the whole jumping around and crap,” Cheng said. “I wanted to finish up my match. I wanted to win my match to restore our NU pride.

“After (Jackson’s) loss, I just hated them with a passion. … Next time we play them, they better watch out. I’m not going to let them do all that crap. We’re just going to kick their ass.”

Here’s what Illinois had to say:

“Our goal now is to stay humble and keep working hard,” Lama said in a press release.

Humble? Lama, grab a dictionary and look it up. Define respect to your players — your team needs it, now, before another ignorant member does her part to give college athletics a bad name.

The inexcusable insult directed at Jackson, the shouting and the cheering: All of those reflect on the Illini, the coach and their school.

“They win here and they absolutely go ballistic, show no class,” Pollard said. “And we win and we keep a very low profile. … I think you’ve got to be classy in victory and classy in defeat. I feel like we’ve got a certain level of standards that we’re not going to fall below.

“I won’t tolerate it.”Even if Illinois does.