NEW YORK -- Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg wanted his team to forget about its heartbreaking loss to Wake Forest last week in its ACC opener.

And the Hokies seemed to do that Saturday afternoon in an ugly 54-48 victory over Big East foe St. John's to claim this year's Aeropostale Holiday Festival championship.

"It is a Big East win," Greenberg said matter-of-factly afterward. "It is a big win. I think what you saw was two young basketball teams trying to develop an identity.

The Blacksburg, Va., school got it done with its two veterans over the course of 40 minutes, as A.D. Vassallo paced Virginia Tech with 16 points in addition to seven rebounds and Deron Washington added 10 points and eight boards of his own.

"If we play the way we're capable of, we can play in the big games," Washington told me outside the Virginia Tech locker room. "We learned a lot from our loss to Wake Forest last week and tried to bring our intensity today."

Whatever the Hokies brought, it seemed to work well enough to squeak out a victory over the Johnnies, who shot a miserable 28.3 percent from the floor for the game in addition to 26.7-percent shooting from behind the three-point line.

"They beat us in a hard game," St. John's coach Norm Roberts confessed. "Both teams played ugly. Both teams had 20 turnovers. It was a hard fought game. We didn't make shots. [But] I am not discouraged at all. They tried hard. I am not going to get down this team. We had a chance to win it all of the way through it."

For as poorly as the Red Storm played at times, St. John's was in the game until the bitter end. In fact, the Johnnies were down by just three after Larry Wright drained a three-pointer with 34 seconds left.

But it was Malcolm Delaney who sunk a pair of free throws on the ensuing possession, and with the lead back up to five, there was little hope of St. John's leaving its home court with a Holiday Festival title, something that certainly was the goal for Roberts when he scheduled his team to play in the holiday tournament way before the 2007-08 season started.

"This was a good game for us to get prepared for the Big East," Roberts added. "Let's not forget, Virginia Tech is a good team. There are going to be a lot of games that are going to be like this in the Big East."

Anthony Mason, Jr. led St. John's in scoring for the second straight night, dropping in 12 points to go along with four assists and two steals. Eugene Lawrence was the other Red Storm player to score in double figures with 10, and the senior guard from Brooklyn also grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.

"We have to get the next one," Mason said, looking rather disinterested in talking to the media following a tight loss in front of a hometown crowd. "You can't get frustrated. You get frustrated, then you start making mistakes.

We have to get back in the gym, get prepared and get ready for Syracuse [next week]."

"Every loss hurts the same," added Justin Burrell, who finished with six points, six rebounds and three blocks in 33 minutes. "They all feel the same."

For Roberts and St. John's, they're just hoping that feeling doesn't run its course through the rest of the season.