Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter admits to being a little superstitious.

His team will get a taste of that Wednesday night shortly after arriving in Indianapolis.

A year ago, Lickliter took the Hawkeyes to the Milano Inn, a long-time eatery in the city and a family-owned restaurant where Lickliter’s Butler teams ate before some of their biggest wins.

The thought — if it worked for the Bulldogs, it would work for the Hawkeyes.

The result — Iowa lost to Michigan in the opening round of the Big Ten tourney.

With another date with the Wolverines set for Thursday’s opening round, Lickliter isn’t taking any chances. The Hawkeyes will have their team meal elsewhere on Wednesday night.

“Fortunately, I’ve got a number of favorite restaurants in Indy. We’re going to try another one this time,” Lickliter said Monday.

Todd Lickliter isn’t big on singling out individual performances.

The Iowa basketball coach couldn’t help but mention the gutsy performance turned in Saturday by Hawkeye sophomore Jake Kelly.

Ignoring the flu and resisting the temptation to simply spend the day in bed attempting to recover from the illness that kept him out of practice on Friday, Kelly helped send Penn State tumbling from a second to a potential sixth seed in the Big Ten tourney with his work in Iowa’s double-overtime win.

Kelly recorded his second straight double-double as Iowa finally saw what it had inside with a healthy Cyrus Tate and Jarryd Cole in the game at the same time.

It all added up to an improbable finish, denying Penn State another of it patented come-from-behind victories and putting a dent in the Nittany Lion’s NCAA armour that looked oh-so-good following Thursday’s win over Illinois.

“I think it was desire,” said Tate, who was awarded just his second start since suffering an ankle injury on Jan. 8 against Minnesota. “We gutted it out. This is our home. It’s a group of guys with the same mindset, that we were going to fight until they tell us we can’t fight any more. We won it together.”

Lickliter won’t argue that point, but he saved special accolades for the performance of a player forced into point guard duties because of injuries at the position.

“Jake had quite a day, considering,” Lickliter said. “Overall, it was an incredible, gutsy performance by the entire group. It’s hard to think of a time in the game when they weren’t competing.”

Iowa wraps up its home regular-season home schedule on Saturday and will honor seniors Cyrus Tate and J.R. Angle before the start of the 1 p.m. game against Penn State.

Coach Todd Lickliter said final regular season home games always seem to come quickly for players who a couple of years earlier were only recruits.

“I always tell guys coming in to enjoy that, that the time will go quickly and when seniors put on or take off that uniform for the last time, it’s difficult,” Lickliter said. “It’s a sign that it’s almost over for them. Hopefully, we can get these guys a few more games — at least five would be great — but it’s a time I’m sure that will allow them to reflect a bit.”

Lickliter inherited both players when he arrived at Iowa two years ago, but said “both of them have been fun to work with.”

Iowa’s work today will be quick. There is a women’s gymnastics meet at Carver-Hawkeye Arena tonight, forcing the Hawkeyes to get in a quick workout so equipment can be set up. Tomorrow’s guest, Penn State, isn’t so lucky.

The Nittany Lions will workout out in the archaic North Gym of the Iowa Field House today. That’s the same place Oakland coach Greg Kampe labeled “the most god-awful place” he’d ever taken a team when his club was forced to work out there prior to a November game at Iowa.

Iowa’s Jeff Peterson is back on the practice court with the team, although Lickliter said he is not yet close to 100 percent and will not likely see playing time against Penn State.

“We’re hoping he will be available by Thursday,” Lickliter said, referring to his team’s Big Ten tourney opener.

Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter said Monday that all off-season aspects of his program including the structure of the summer Prime Time League will be evaluated following the conclusion of the current season.

“We’ll look at everything,” Lickliter said. “I’ve never been a patient guy. We always evaluate what we are doing and what we may need to do better to get to where we need to be. It’s like attendance. If there is a problem, let’s fix it.”

For example, Lickliter expects to discuss changes in strength training with a newly-hired strength assistant who has been assigned to the men’s basketball program. He believes progress is being made toward building a needed practice facility and he would like to find a way increase the value of the Prime Time League.

“I wish we could find a way for our guys to really compete, three, four nights a week,” Lickliter said. ”At Butler, we had that type of a situation and losing teams, they went to the west gym away from the spotlight so guys really didn’t want to lose. I don’t see that type of environment here. I would like to see us come up with more of a competitive setting. It’s something we’ll talk about.”

That will come with time.

“Right now, my thoughts are on our upcoming games,” he said.

The Prime Time League has been around for more than 20 years, providing Iowa players with a structured environment to compete in twice weekly during the summer. The league currently consists of players from Iowa and Northern Iowa as well as former collegians who live in the area, current college players from area small colleges and junior colleges and a handful of high school players.

Iowa’s basketball team finished the season with 11 consecutive road losses, including the Hawkeyes’ first winless Big Ten season away from home since the 2001-02 season.

Michigan State and Northwestern were the final stops on Iowa’s all-for-nothing tour of the Big Ten, two of the more interesting venues around the league.

The Spartans’ Breslin Center turns 20 years old later this season and while sellout crowds regularly file into the palace on the Michigan State campus, there is one thing that few visitors get a chance to see. The cement-block wall outside of the visitor’s dressing room is home to one of the most impressive autograph collections anywhere.

Performers who have entertained at the Breslin Center over the years have all scrawled their signatures on the wall, where a plastic cover protects names of everyone from legends such as Bob Hope to members of the group Nine Inch Nails. Justin Timberlake’s signature is there, as is Dolly Parton’s hand-written autograph and Michael Jordan’s name. It’s an eclectic bunch that illustrates the variety of entertainment that has filled the venue.

Northwestern’s Welsh-Ryan Arena is a throwback. Although it was remodeled in the early 1980s, the 1950s gym on the lakeshore campus has a feel of its own and in size, it is not that different from the mammoth high school arenas at Rock Island and Moline in the Illinois Quad-Cities that seat in excess of 6,000 fans.

When Iowa visited Saturday, it was a little more retro than usual. The Hawkeyes and Wildcats played with the help of generators that were brought in to light the arena.

Throughout the past week, a malfunctioning power cable made electricity an on-again, off-again luxury at Welsh-Ryan. Large diesel generators were brought in to assure power during Saturday’s game but shortly after the game ended, the lights began to flicker and not only were a group of reporters left in the dark, so was the Northwestern women’s basketball team as it attempted to practice in preparation for Sunday’s game with Iowa.

The arena remained dark only momentarily and a limited amount of power was restored, allowing reporters to get their work done and the Wildcats to continue their workout.