Stephen Nover is on a 14-6 premium play hot streak and has found another winner, this one coming in the Horizon League. There's more than meets the eye here, setting up this big college basketball winner!
Member Notes
Today’s Free Picks
| Sport | Game Selection | Game Time |
|---|---|---|
| CBB | (749) Valparaiso at (750) Illinois State | 7:00pm EST - Feb 12/2026 |
The PLAY: Valparaiso +8.5 (-110)
Illinois State, the preseason favorite to win the Missouri Valley Conference, is an underachieving 8-6 in league play. Overachieving Valparaiso is only one game behind the Redbirds at 7-7.
The Beacons are one of the hottest point spread teams in the country going 11-2 ATS in their last 13 games. This includes a 77-71 home upset win against Illinois State last month and an 81-76 upset road win against defending Missouri Valley Conference champion Drake this past Monday.
Valparaiso plays Illinois State with a great deal of confidence as it should, having won 13 of the last 15 meetings.
Consultant Bio
Stephen Nover is unique among professional handicappers. A multiple award-winning sportswriter for numerous newspapers, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nover has one the best combinations of gambling and media sources in the world.
The author of two sports gambling books, "Las Vegas Sports Beat" and "Sports Gaming Beat", along with a book on fantasy football titled, "Winning Fantasy Football", Nover is a former professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas having taught a football handicapping class there. He also was the co-host of the Sunday night sports betting radio show "The Stardust Line" during the 1990's.
Parlaying nearly 50 years worth of professional gambling experience with tremendous knowledge of the players through elite deep-roster Rotisserie leagues and building on copious gaming and media sources - having worked for newspapers in the Midwest, South and West and also for legendary Hall of Fame oddsmaker Roxy Roxborough - Nover is a true Las Vegas wise guy. He helped learn his craft from such masters as Roxborough, Dave Malinsky, Lem Banker and Russ Culver.
Part of what makes Nover so special is the pride he takes in writing his deep-dive analysis, which always is unique, well-researched and sometimes entails out-of-the-box thinking.