Ever since Cruz's speech where he shamelessly set up the scene from the 1986 film Hoosiers, I haven't been able to get the movie out of my mind.
I hate it when that happens. Now whenever the candidate does anything, I associate it with the rest of the movie.
So, with the clock ticking down, we're now in the scene where 'Ollie,' the smallest guy on the team, gets fouled and takes his free-throws (granny-shot style) to win the game to get them to the next level -- the championship round.
And this is really where we are at today in Indiana.
No other races are distracting us, the clock is ticking down to the final buzzer -- 6 p.m. ET in most of the state, 7 p.m ET in the counties that are in the central time zone.
Right now, the lone man on the court is Ted Cruz, trying to buck the polls, the odds, and Trump's momentum to sink his shots for victory.
And he can't miss. With winner-take-all by congressional district and a large statewide prize, those 57 votes are essential to his plans for stopping Trump.
And just like Hoosiers, it's not the end of the story -- Ted Cruz could land his miracle 'granny shots' and the outcome would be that he needs to keep on winning, and winning big in the final few contests. Because the real game, the showdown, is still going to be California.
But right now, Ted Cruz, while surrounded by supporters, is the loneliest man in Indiana, standing 15 feet from the basket, the ball is in mid-air, and all he can do is wait to see if his last desperate shot sinks.