Cruz-vs.-Kimmel hoops grudge match set for TSU’s court

Basketball season isn’t quite over yet, Houston.

It may not be the Rockets vs. the Golden State Warriors, but U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel will suit up Saturday at Texas Southern University for a game of one-on-one basketball to settle a weeklong Twitter grudge.

Last week, the GOP senator was engaged in a lively back-andforth with Kimmel on Twitter. The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host mocked Cruz’s appearance at the Rockets’ recent loss to the Warriors in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals.

Cruz responded by challenging Kimmel to a one-on-one basketball game, with the loser giving $5,000 to the non-political charity of the winner’s choice.

“The reason this is happening,” Kimmel said to his audience Monday, is because “I likened Ted Cruz to a blobfish. He did not like that. So he challenged me to a game of one-on-one.”

After some verbal sparring, Cruz and Kimmel have agreed to play their high-profile basketball shoot-off, known as the Blobfish Basketball Classic, on Father’s Day weekend.

In a YouTube video last week, Kimmel announced he accepted Cruz’s challenge as he took a couple of shots on the Lone Star State’s junior senator.

On his show Monday, Kimmel promised that this would be Cruz’s second-most embarrassing loss to a TV host in recent memory, referring to his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against President Donald Trump.

But the spectacle is for a good cause.

Cruz and Kimmel are playing for two charities — Texas Children’s Hospital and Generation One, a Houston-based education nonprofit. Footage from the contest will be published on Youtube following the match.

Anyone can donate to the cause of their choice at www.kimmelvscruz.com.

Tickets are free and can be ordered at www.tedcruz.org/tickets.

Doors open at 2:30 p.m., and the game begins at 5 p.m.