"Wouldn't have gotten off Calhoun's bench" is a ridiculous standard for the types of players we should have on our roster next year, Hurley recruiting uptick or not...especially considering a kid who was the last denizen of JC's doghouse (Daniels) played a significant part in our most recent tourney run. And besides, Calhoun went up against schools of the caliber of Arizona, Louisville, and Ohio State many times when recruiting HS players. I would've thought that nobody would be griping about the quality of player we'd be getting by going head-to-head with those schools today. Oh well.
It's quite clear that you don't follow college basketball very closely given the abundance of transfers from lower-level schools that are seeing or are primed to experience success. Florida's Egor Koulechov averaged ~14 and 6 while shooting nearly 40% from 3 after coming from Rice in Conference USA, a year after the Gators boasted a grad transfer from College of Charleston as their best bench option on an Elite 8 team. Missouri increased their 2016–17 win total by 150% on the backs of 16 PPG and a 43% 3PT rate from a guard from Canisius. Xavier garnered a one seed after moving a transfer from Wisconsin-Green Bay averaging 10.9/4.5 into their starting lineup. Clemson made the Sweet 16 after being led in scoring by a guard whose first stop was Robert Morris. Auburn's Desean Murray put up 10/7 in his first year after transferring from Presbyterian. Texas and Miami have transfers from Mount St. Mary's who sat out this past year. Shall I continue?
What you also seem to be missing is that taking the right transfer instead of a freshman is a perfectly effective way to "build a team." Each team in the final four this past year had at least one transfer in the rotation; two won MOP honors in their tournament region (Michigan-Matthews and Kansas-Newman), one won Conference POY (Loyola-Custer), and the other has been a solid rotation piece all year long (Villanova-Paschall). Would any of those teams have made it as far as they did if they rejected each transfer out of hand and went with a freshman simply for the sake of going with a freshman?
College basketball is evolving, and thankfully the foolish "big time programs don't use transfers" attitude you espouse is becoming less common every day.