Collegiate Times

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With the win, Vassallo and Cheick Diakite can now claim to have defeated every Atlantic Coast Conference team, a remarkable feat for a program so new to the league.

"If anyone doesn't think, top to bottom, that this isn't the toughest league in the country, they haven't played in this league. It's not one game, it's the collective 1-16; the intensity and the pressure and the resiliency you must have to get through it," Greenberg said.

"It feels great. At least I can say I've beat everybody since I've been here," Vassallo said.

Vassallo and Diakite are not the first Tech players to make this claim, though. Former standouts Zabian Dowdell, Coleman Collins, Jamon Gordon of the '07 class and Deron Washington ('08) can all say the same.

The fact that three straight classes of graduating seniors have accomplished this feat truly speaks volumes about Greenberg and the program he is building at Tech.

This win may prove to be a real turning point for the Hokies as well.

After blowing a huge lead against Clemson and losing a heartbreaker to Boston College at the buzzer, Tech responded by playing like a defeated team for most of the game but snapped out of its funk just in time.

Earlier in the week, Greenberg warned of a potential snowball effect when playing in the ACC.

"When you play in the ACC, when you play in an elite conference, you're going to have some hiccups," Greenberg said. "And the only way you deal with it is staying in the present, not letting the hiccup snowball -- and it can very easily snowball in this conference."

If Tech can continue to play as it did the last 11 minutes of the game, the Hokies have a real chance at claiming a top-four finish in the ACC and earning a NCAA tournament bid.

Instead of dropping to 4-4 in conference play and falling to seventh place in the ACC, the Hokies improved to 5-3, which puts them in a four-way tie for third with Florida State, Clemson and Wake Forest.

"We should have one loss right now, but we got a tough team," Delaney said. "I think we started off good in the first half, and I think for the second half of the schedule it puts us in a good position to make the NCAA."

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