Luke Nevill was an exchange student in Georgia and had ACC/SEC offers.
Sabonis played pro ball in the top Euro league, grew up in Portland, and had Pac 12 offers and a 4/5 star rating.
Karnowski was a McDonald's AA type "get" over Duke and others:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1286880-great-expectations-of-gonzagas-biggest-recruit-przemek-karnowski
Andrew Bogut I googled the back story and didn't find much. So maybe he's the overlooked type, but given he was MVP of an International tourney that beat the U.S., I'm guessing he was on other teams' radars and Utah beat them for him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bogut#Early_life
Point is, the Zags guys you mentioned had TONS of attention and recruiting and were known entities. It's not like Mark Few found these guys from nowhere and made them stars.
The SMC Australian finds are a little more like that, but I just really don't think it's as simple as "making it a priority."
If they make finding diamonds in the rough 18 hour flights away, how do they maintain the stateside recruiting pressure that they need to compete? People seem to forget it's 4 dudes and there is limited recruiting time. They literally, physically, cannot be everywhere at once and being in those gyms to watch guys and develop relationships matters.