What's happened here is attrition. Teams are being left completely vacant of talent (like Baylor) and now that creates an urgency to fill out a roster. Teams are more willing to overpay, especially for high-end talent, because there will only be so much of it. The value of all players rises as a result. "THis guy got 1.5M? Well I score more than he does so I should get the same!" This is why this whole system is unsustainable. There is money out there for these players, but that money isn't going to be there forever. Not to mention sometimes you hit up donors to update your facilities, and now those donors are almost directly paying these guys. It's not some infinite money tree. Something is going to bottleneck eventually and donors are going to say no, especially if the team they're paying doesn't win. Then what happens?
This whole system is going to collapse in on itself, and some of these players are going to be left holding the bag and going to a program they didn't want because the money will have dried up.