Fran Fraschilla criticizes officials for treatment of Duke, Kansas, Kentucky

Some of the best atmospheres in college basketball of course come from some of the top programs in the sport. Places such as Allen Fieldhouse, Cameron Indoor, and Rupp Arena are bucket list items for most fans, no matter who the opponent is.

However, not everybody seems to be a fan of the way games go at some of the famous arenas.

While being the color commentator for Monday’s matchup against Kansas and Oklahoma State, ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla had an opinion about the officiating for some of college basketball’s blue blood programs. He said some schools, specifically mentioning Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky, will always get favorable calls from referees just because they are playing at their home arena.

“I’ve got to say this,” Fraschilla said. “Let me get this out of the way. If you don’t think Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas have a home-court advantage on occasion with the human nature of some officials, you are out of your mind. You are out of your mind. We’ve all lived it if we coached. That’s all I’ll say about it.”

Fran Fraschilla calls out favorable officiating for Kansas vs Baylor

Monday was not the first time Fraschilla has brought up a top program, specifically Kansas, getting a favorable call at home. During a game at Allen Fieldhouse with Baylor in town, the ESPN analyst talked about how head coach Scott Drew showed them how the officials were favoring the Jayhawks. From there, he had similar comments to the ones he had on Monday night.

“I gotta be frank with everybody,” Fraschilla began. “He showed us six of those plays from last year in this building and they didn’t get the calls last year. And I’m going to say this and the referees will not like this. In this building, the crowd and sometimes the human nature of officials, it’s a ten-point advantage. I missed that first foul. The charge was clear. But Scott Drew, he almost talked us into thinking that last year there was some calls in that game that did not go their way.

“You don’t see it from him very often and again this is a reaction to what he thought happened a year ago in that building when Kansas put on Baylor their first loss of the season. And I also think its a reaction to set the stage for the rest of the season. And by the way, it will fire his team up if not to day when they get back to that locker room and back to Wace. It’s psychology 101 from coaching. There will be people that scream about him acting that way but that guy got 35-6 in the Big 12 the last three years.”