The names read like a litany of Hall of Famers - Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes. They all played at Houston, and there are reminders of their success all over Hofheinz Pavilion and in the basketball offices.

Lately, though, there hasn't been much to remember fondly about Houston basketball. The Cougars, once a national power, haven't won an NCAA Tournament game since 1984 when Guy Lewis ran the program.

Phi Slamma Jamma is a distant memory.

Where once fans packed Hofheinz, only a smattering of them show up now to watch Houston play in Conference USA.

If this sounds familiar to University of Cincinnati basketball fans, it should. The Bearcats were in similar straits when Bob Huggins took over from Tony Yates in 1989.

Many of the elements were the same - a strong tradition in the distant past, great alumni such as Oscar Robertson and Jack Twyman, an urban campus in a major-league town.

Huggins restored the luster to the UC program, and now Houston hopes the well-traveled Tom Penders will do the same for the Cougars.

Penders, who was hired March 23 to replace Ray McCallum (44-72 in four seasons), has turned around programs at Texas and Rhode Island and is confident he can do the same for Houston.

"This is the only program that I've taken over that has had any national tradition," Penders said. "The people are just starving to get it back to that level. That, I think, makes it more doable."

Penders is going the junior-college route in an attempt to win right away. He signed five junior-college players in five weeks after taking the job. Three of them are in the 6-foot-8, 240-pound range.

"If I was going to do it right away, I had to (go with junior-college players)," Penders said, "because in the spring there's nothing left. The only high school kids that are left are marginal Division I or low mid-major types who didn't get a scholarship offer in the fall, or kids with no grades."

Penders is the seventh Houston coach since Lewis left in 1986. Unlike some of the others, including Drexler, he won't have to compete with UC, Louisville, Marquette and Charlotte after the first season. When those schools leave the conference after this season, Houston will remain behind in C-USA.

He sees that as an advantage.

"That gives us a tremendous opportunity to be a dominant player in this league and not have to wait four or five years to do it," Penders said. "For a coach in a new situation trying to get to the Tournament on a regular basis, I couldn't have asked for a better situation."

GOOD FIT: Murray State coach Mick Cronin, who signed La Salle's Justin Orr last week, didn't think he would be able to get him when he began recruiting him last summer, despite the fact that Cronin's a La Salle graduate and his father, Hep, is a La Salle assistant coach.

"Circumstances change a lot of things," Cronin said. "I think our 28 wins and a lot of the exposure we got helped us as far as the recognition level of our program."

Orr, the Greater Catholic League South player of the year, ended his season prematurely in February when he underwent knee surgery. La Salle was 19-0 and ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Division I state poll at the time.

He had made an oral commitment to Miami during the winter, then changed his mind.

"He was looking for a certain style of play," Cronin said. "Being a GCL kid, where the games are exciting and the gyms are packed, he wanted to go somewhere where basketball was important and there was a lot of atmosphere around the games."

Orr, a small forward who played a pressing, up-tempo style at La Salle, should fit in nicely at Murray State, where the Racers play a similar style. He averaged 17.8 points and 6.3 rebounds a game last season.

"This guy was player of the year in the GCL over (Andrew) Brackman and (Josh) Duncan," Cronin said. "... He's very skilled."

GOIN APPOINTED: UC athletic director Bob Goin has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Bethany (W. Va.) College. Goin graduated from there in 1959 and was athletic director and chair of the physical education department from 1970-76.

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E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com