Cavaliers grin and Bear it

The Virginia ticket office should give Steve Gruber a cut of the gate receipts. After all, Gruber provided the most memorable entertainment on Tuesday night.

Forget about the Delta Dental Smile & Smooch Cam. Forget about the free Domino’s Pizza giveaway. You can even forget about Mamadi Diane’s highlight-reel dunk.

Midway through the second half, Gruber, — a generously-listed 5-foot-11 back-up guard for Brown who looks more like your younger sister’s boyfriend than a big-time basketball player — was the main attraction.

The junior from Milwaukee, Wis. swished an off-balance shot from about 50 feet.

“I caught the ball in the backcourt and knew there was no time on the shot clock, so I just threw it up there,” said Gruber, who hadn’t scored a point all season. “The next thing I know, it’s in the hoop.”

The sparse crowd on hand at John Paul Jones Arena, which had been comatose to that point, erupted. When Gruber came out of the game a few

seconds later, he received a standing ovation. The play by the diminutive Gruber was even shown on the replay board in the arena — a rare feat for an opposing player.

Gruber’s shot, coupled with the fact that Virginia won its last non-conference game of the season, 74-50, basically tells you all you need to know about what transpired at JPJ. No, this game was not one for the time capsule.

But Virginia coach Dave Leitao, whose team was coming off a bad loss to Xavier on Saturday, doesn’t care about aesthetics.

“It’s always good to get back to winning,” Leitao said. “I thought we did some of that today, particularly in the second half on defense where I thought we picked up the pace and wore them down a little more and stretch it out and run a little bit.”

Virginia (7-5) outrebounded the smaller Bears 41-29 and held them to just 23 percent shooting in the second half. UVa, which plays at Virginia Tech on Saturday, was led by Mike Scott’s 15 points and 10 rebounds. Sammy Zeglinski added 14 points.

Sylven Landesberg, who came into the contest leading the ACC in scoring, scored just four points (a career low), all from the free-throw line. Leitao said his star freshman has been suffering from a head cold and hasn’t been himself the last few days.

No matter against Brown (5-8), a team coming off a 15-point loss to American and had dropped games against Wagner and New Hampshire this season.

Leitao used his seventh different starting lineup to open the game. Somewhat surprisingly, Diane replaced Calvin Baker.

The senior captain, who broke an 0 for 21 streak from 3-point range versus Xavier, nailed his first three shots — a 3-pointer, a baseline jumper and one of his trademark soaring one-handed dunks, then missed his next five shots.

“It’s been based on practices and just getting more things right — particularly on defense,” said Leitao, when asked about the decision to start Diane. “I think Mo’s energy has been better…he stepped off the court the other night with a little bit of energy and so I tried to ride that a little bit to jumpstart not only him, but us.”

In the first half, Brown actually hung around. The Bears lulled the Cavs to sleep with their methodical style and burned them with some nifty backdoor cuts.

However, Virginia, which only led by 10 at the half, took command after the intermission.

“We just wanted to come out here and get back on the right path,” Zeglinski said. “We were able to do that. Going into league, it was good motivation.”

Leitao concurred: “We have a very difficult game on Saturday afternoon that we’ll have to be obviously very, very tight in all aspects of the game in order to be successful.

“One, it’s an ACC game. Two, it’s a road game, and three, it’s our neighbors down south. It’s always good for everybody to compete and hopefully win against them.”