If you believe this premise, then it was paramount for a school like Marquette to pay whatever it took to bring in an established coach. Empty seats cost a university a lot more than any coach's salary. Its still incomprehensible that an offer in excess of $2 mil.
wouldn't have brought in a known quantity. Bottom line is MU made a business decision and cheaped out.
It's not like MU was ready and willing to shell out $1.5m+/year to some coach that hasn't proved anything yet to them. It took TC like 5 raises to get to the point where he was making that kind of cash. MU wants a coach to prove he can recruit to MU and coach MU to many victories before a coach starts making bank like that, and they should.