"We play to win. We don't play to lose," said Gillen when the subject of moral victories was broached after No. 1 Duke's 104-93 win over Virginia on Wednesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. "You're on boot hill if you lose. You get moral victories and they'll put you next to Wild Bill Hickcock and he got shot, too."
The Virginia players seemed equally dismissive of that odd and unwanted moral victory label.
"We just take it as another game. The game's over and now we have to go play at Clemson. We can't just talk about it. We just have to do it," said sophomore forward Elton Brown, who had 19 points against the Blue Devils.
Added senior forward Travis Watson: "If anything, this taught us to bring the energy each and every night."
As Gillen and his players dually noted, the game was still a loss and real victories - not moral ones - are what the Cavaliers are looking for. Still, the game did not resemble Virginia's typical road losses, especially at Cameron, where the Cavaliers have lost by an average of nearly 30 a game in the previous four games before Wednesday.
The Cavaliers did not appear daunted or unprepared for the task and never were "shook" as Gillen often uses to explain his team's unappealing road efforts. There were tangible reasons for Virginia's loss Wednesday that had nothing to do with simply playing poorly on the road.
First, J.J. Redick scored a Duke freshman record 34 points. Second, Duke made its free throws (37 of 40) and converted especially when needed. Virginia's effort just could not overcome those two items.
"We gave it our best. … We fired all our guns," Gillen said.
If anything remained a constant from Virginia's road woes, it was poor outside shooting. Virginia made four of its 14 3-pointers as the Blue Devils made a certain effort to limit the Cavaliers in that area.
"We tried to take away their 3-point shots. Coming into this game, I think that they had shot something like 25 3-pointers in the last four games. They have good shooters and are a tough team to defend," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
In its two ACC roads games so far this season, Virginia is just eight of 36 from behind the arc.
"We don't shoot the 3s as well on the road as we do at home. That's just the way it is. They have great quickness and great athletes. They can put great athletes on our guys. We did do a good job getting the ball inside," said Gillen, whose team did shoot 50.8 percent overall from the field.
Note. After playing two minutes against North Carolina on Saturday, junior guard Majestic Mapp did not play Wednesday. Gillen said that there have not been complications from his return the other day but that, "We didn't feel it was the ideal spot for him with this type of frenzy and aggressiveness."