we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.
You should re-watch the game - your recollection of how the final 3:48 unfolded is not very accurate.
JB did not call for a Hughes iso until there was 2:30 remaining, and that possession did result in a forced shot by Elijah (as Cone essentially ignored HoWash to double/help on Hughes). After VaTech then scored to cut the lead to 1, JB called a timeout with 1:52 left and replaced HoWash with Joe.
The first possession after the timeout saw Hughes iso’d up top - but now with Joe in the game, there was no double-team coming. Interestingly, JB also apparently coached Hughes to start his drive relatively quickly (perhaps anticipating that if a double came, it would come late?). Elijah made his move to the basket with 22 seconds still left on the shot clock. Marek got his layup with 17 left on the shot clock and 1:38 left on the game clock.
Next possession, same play call. Hughes iso up top, no double off of Joe or Buddy, Elijah made his move to the basket and scored again with 12 on the shot clock and 1:00 on the game clock.
Final SU possession was a 3rd straight iso for Hughes. This one started later - after calling a timeout, SU only had 16 seconds to shoot and Hughes didn’t get the ball up top until the shot clock had ticked down to 8 seconds. We ended up with a Hughes fade-away jumper that did not catch the rim, resulting in a shot clock violation with 0:10.3 remaining in the game.
And finally, after VaTech advanced the ball over half court and called timeout to setup their final possession (with just 0:07.4 remaining), JB subbed in Bourama for Joe and shifted Hughes up to the top of the zone. This gave us two 6’-6” guys up top, which clearly bothered the VaTech play call for Nolley to launch from the top of the key (which is clearly his preferred shooting spot if you paid attention to both games against them).
So to answer your questions: Yes, the calls for Hughes isolations were good coaching. We got 2 important buckets down the stretch by going through our best player. No, we did not waste 2 minutes of game clock running isos for Hughes with HoWash on the floor.
And I believe your original quote was that “the coaching was garbage for the last 4 minutes”. Lol. Methinks that says more about your understanding of the game of basketball than anything else...