Ted Cruz bricks ‘Hoosiers’ speech in Indiana, calls hoop a ‘basketball ring’

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer

While Republican frontrunner Donald Trump celebrated his five-state sweep in Tuesday’s Republican primaries, Ted Cruz held a rally in Indiana inside the gym where “Hoosiers” was shot.

But while expressing his love for the classic 1986 sports film, the Texas senator stumbled with some simple basketball terminology, referring to the hoop as a “ring.”

“The amazing thing is, that basketball ring in Indiana,” Cruz told the crowd inside Hoosier Gym in Knightstown while recreating one of the movie’s iconic scenes, “it’s the same height as it is in New York City and every other place in this country.”

Except it’s not called a “ring" — not in Indiana, New York City or anywhere else in this country.

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Ted Cruz speaks during a rally at Hoosier Gym in Knightstown, Ind., on Tuesday. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

"Cruz could have called the hoop a goal, rim, basket or a cylinder,” USA Today noted, “and nobody would have blinked an eye.”

But blink they did, especially Twitter observers.



Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell was among them.



Of course, when it comes to politicians making sports gaffes, Cruz isn’t alone.

John Kerry once infamously referred to Lambeau Field, the Green Bay Packers’ home stadium, as “Lambert Field.”

And earlier this month, Trump asked the crowd at a rally in Pittsburgh, “How’s Joe Paterno?”

Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, died in 2012.