Ted Cruz Grayson Allen

Two long-running internet memes have been Texas senator and former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s ignorance of basketball (thanks to a Hoosiers speech where he cited a basketball ring” instead of a hoop) and his resemblance to controversial Duke star Grayson Allen, and those memes collided in a spectacular way Tuesday.

On Monday, Deadspin ran a post by Ashley Feinberg titled “Send Us Proof Of Ted Cruz Playing Basketball,” referencing a Politico piece that Cruz was focused on building and repairing relationships with Republican senators, and “started a weekly basketball game in the Russell Building, for example, and has been urging colleagues to attend.” That led to Feinberg writing this:

Surely some of you reading this must work on the Hill, or know someone who works on the Hill, or know someone who is secretly sleeping in the men’s locker room in the Russell Building on the Hill. Either way, if you happen to snap a few photographs—or better yet, a video—of Ted Cruz in his raw, unbridled, soup-fueled athletic form, please for the love of god send them to ashley@gizmodomedia.com.

It’s going to be a long four years. We need this.

That led to Cruz’s official Twitter account responding to Deadspin’s tweet of the story with a picture of Allen:

That tweet has over 3,000 retweets and 5,000 likes in less than an hour, showing that Cruz (or perhaps one of his staffers) finally figured out a way to get on the right side of the internet. Of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t still be mocked for other things. It certainly didn’t win over Deadspin:

And Cruz responded with an Anchorman reference:

In any case, it’s pretty funny that Cruz himself or someone close to him is weighing in on the Allen resemblance again. He did address it during his campaign, too:

For the record, the Politico piece mentions that Cruz “is said to be a surprisingly good jump-shooter with miserable form.” But hey, he or one of his staffers showed good tweeting form Tuesday…

[Ted Cruz on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

Comments are closed.