Stephen Nover turns to the Big East to find another winner looking to go 8-1 on his last nine college basketball plays!
Member Notes
Today’s Free Picks
| Sport | Game Selection | Game Time |
|---|---|---|
| CBB | (627) UCLA at (628) Minnesota | 2:00pm EST - Feb 28/2026 |
The PLAY: Minnesota +1.5 (-115)
During the past seven days, UCLA has enjoyed a blowout home win against arch-rival USC and scored an upset home victory in overtime against 10th-ranked Illinois on a buzzer-beater layup. Now the Bruins go on the road to face Minnesota in an early start time.
UCLA is 1-5 SU and ATS when playing out of its time zone. The Bruins have lost these five games - all to Big Ten teams - by an average of 17.2 points. The only win and cover came against Penn State, who ranks last in the Big Ten with a 2-15 conference record.
This is an awkward spot for the Bruins, who return home following this game to host Nebraska on Tuesday.
Minnesota is 11-4 at home. The Gophers have pulled off straight-up upset victories at home against Michigan State, Iowa and Indiana. They are well-coached under their first-year head coach Niko Medved.
The Gopher's physical style, slow pace, defensive rebounding and 31st-ranked defense can cause problems for UCLA, especially if the Bruins are flat which I expect.
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.