I'm rejecting that we'd have been able to afford a B1G-level impact 22 year old at all (let alone two of them), with even less non-Harper/Bailey NIL money.
You're talking about dropping our 2 most talented players, replacing them with 2 random HS freshmen, and hoping that we'd be able to trade two of our current portal transfers for two others.... who would be net/net better than having Bailey/Harper on the team. None of this improves retention, or chemistry, or helps get everyone playing Pikiell-style defense.... it just swaps two freshman superstars for "two portal players in our budget".
Also, Bailey was our first commit for the 2024 class (Jan 2023). There's no telling whether we'd have even gotten Sommerville (Apr 2023), Dorch (Jun 2023), or Grant (Aug 2023) without that domino falling first.