For many prep basketball players, Las Vegas is a losing proposition

Do college athletic directors know how much time and money was just wasted by their basketball coaches? And do parents understand that playing for one of the 900 or so club teams who descended on Las Vegas last week doesn't guarantee their son exposure to college recruiters?

Those are the two truths I discovered during three days observing what was billed as the largest collection of youth basketball talent in the nation -- four NCAA-certified tournaments being run concurrently before the watchful eyes of dozens of college coaches.

The big winners: The shoe companies that sponsored the events and tournament organizers who charged teams up to $700 to compete, charged recruiters up to $300 to purchase player rosters with phone numbers, and charged spectators $10 to attend games.

"It's a charade," one coach said.

If this is the best the NCAA can do to help coaches evaluate players, then it needs to go back to the drawing board.

Yes, there are benefits to having so many players in one location, but let's stop spreading the false impression to gullible parents that by playing their sons are suddenly going to be on the recruiting radar.

Most of the time, college coaches, wearing shirts with school logos and school colors, showed up at games as babysitters, simply letting kids they have been recruiting for months know they support them. Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo watched a game in which Michigan high school players were performing. Louisiana State Coach Trent Johnson watched a game involving a team from New Orleans. Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar watched a team from Seattle. North Carolina Coach Roy Williams watched Tar Heels commit John Henson.

Now I didn't drive around to every gym hosting events -- there were dozens. I hung out mainly at the headquarter gyms, where the top teams were playing. But I got the distinct impression there wasn't a whole lot of hustling going on to discover previously unknown talent.

That became a reality on the second day when I decided to follow up on the highest scoring performance in the Reebok Summer Championships. Ray Penn, a little-known 5-foot-10 guard from Richmond, Texas, a suburb of Houston, scored 37 points for the Houston Superstars.

The next day, I watched him score 43 points, with few coaches in attendance. The next game, he scored 44 points.

Asked how many coaches watched the last game, Penn's club coach, John Eurey, said, "Not as many as you would think. I think sometimes when you get players who are ranked early, [coaches] leave no room for players who are unranked."

Said Penn: "I guess they wanted to see other people. I've been playing [on the club circuit] for a long time. For people to realize now who I am, I take it as kind of an insult."

A couple of days after tournament play ended, Eurey said he had received several phone calls from new schools expressing interest in Penn. But the coach believes top programs should be recruiting Penn, comparing him to the Reebok tournament's top guards, John Wall from Raleigh, N.C., and Kenny Boynton from Plantation, Fla.

"The high-level schools are not recruiting him, but if you look statistically what Ray Penn did, he deserves to be in the same class as John Wall and Kenny Boynton," Eurey said.

I'll disagree with Eurey about Penn being in the class of Wall and Boynton, but he certainly displayed major-college ability.

The problem was, coaches made plans before the tournament about who they would watch, and Penn wasn't on the agenda.

This week, recruiters will shift their focus to the Best of the Summer tournament at Loyola Marymount. But any player hoping to be discovered better hope they are matched against a top player already being recruited.

In my eyes, these tournaments are gimmicks for organizers to make money. Period.

Yes, the competition can be good and help players become better, but overall I don't see the Las Vegas experience as something basketball should be puffing out its chest to brag about.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com