An easy winner with St. Mary's against Santa Clara last night pushed Stephen Nover's college basketball winning streak to seven in a row. Picking his spots carefully, Stephen looks to go 8-0 finding a mispriced total on this small conference West Coast matchup. Stick with the West Coast basketball guru and win again!
Member Notes
Today’s Free Picks
| Sport | Game Selection | Game Time |
|---|---|---|
| NBA | (539) Houston Rockets at (540) Orlando Magic | 7:40pm EST - Feb 26/2026 |
The PLAY: Houston Rockets -2.5 (-115)
An upper tier Western Conference team is much better than a slightly above average Eastern Conference team. That's what we have in this matchup with the Rockets taking on the Magic.
Houston is 36-21. The Rockets are the best rebounding team in the NBA, rank third defensively and are sixth in 3-point shooting. The Rockets are back healthy, too, as Amen Thompson is good to go after missing the Rockets' easy 128-97 home win against the Kings on Wednesday.
Orlando is 31-26. The Magic rank 12th defensively and are slightly below average in scoring and rebounding. They are not healthy either with second-leading scorer Franz Wagner out and top assists guy and elite defender Jalen Suggs questionable.
Houston did play last night, but none of its starters logged major minutes. Orlando is in a more precarious situational spot returning home from a four-game, six-day West Coast trip that concluded this past Tuesday night. The Magic are fat and happy off upset victories against the Lakers and Clippers.
(Editor's note: Stephen Nover is on an epic hockey run going a perfect 17-0 on his last 17 NHL premium/free plays. Stephen also is 12-5 on his last 17 NBA premium plays and has won his last seven college basketball plays. Stephen has huge premium plays in each of these sports today in addition to this free selection.)
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.