Preview Benetton Treviso-Cajasol Sevilla

The second semifinal (20:30 CET) will be between the hosts of Benetton Bwin Treviso and the Spanish team of Cajasol Sevilla.

Treviso started this Eurocup from the preliminary round where they easily defeated APOEL Nicosia, then they won 11 of 12 round robin matches before defeating the Germans of BG Gottingen in the quarter finals.

Sevilla started from the 1st round where finished in the second place, then played in the Group L of Last16 (same group of Treviso) finishing second with a 5-1 record, then defeated the Ukrainian team of Budivelnik Kiev in the quarter finals.

In the previous match-ups of this Eurocup the hosting team won both times. On 25th January Sevilla won 66-55 on Treviso, while on 1st March in Palaverde Treviso won for 84-68 and won also the two-leg match-up to win the group.

Two teams, two players on 2010-2011 Eurocup First Team. The awarded player of Treviso is the small forward Devin Smith, who played in last year's Final Four with Panellinios, while Sevilla has in the First Team the French Tariq Kirksay, a really skilled forward who played also in Kazan, another team in this Final Four.

Treviso is really interesting because of his young players; the 1992 guard Alessandro Gentile, son of former Italian NT player Ferdinando Gentile and the 1990 7-foot forward Donatas Motiejunas; the Lithuanian won the Rising Star award of this Eurocup. The point guard is the Serbian Stefan Markovic, who played in Turin's Final Eight with the jersey of Hemofarm Vrsac while the starting five is completed by Greg Brunner, an hustle player in the frontcourt. From the bench we have some experienced players in Massimo Bulleri (historic player of Benetton in his 3rd stint with this team) and in bigmen Brian Skinner (many years in NBA) and Sandro Nicevic, while the rotation is completed by the Croatian Hrvoje Peric, a player who can play in many positions on the floor.

The head coach is the Croatian Jasmin Repesa, who coached many years between Euroleague and Eurocup.

Sevilla relies on some experienced players like the talented guard Louis Bullock, former Real Madrid, and the other guard Tyrone Ellis. Sevilla has a really deep frontcourt; the most important player is the skilled USA Paul Davis, nominee in the 2010-2011 Eurocup Second Team, but Sevilla can play also with the Bulgarian Kaloyan Ivanov, the athletic Spanish Juan Jose Triguero, the Lithuanian Mindaugas Katelynas and the Spanish Mario Cabanas. In the backcourt there's also Earl Calloway, who played really well in last Euroleague with Cibona Zagreb but this season had an injury who limited him; the other two players who complete the rotation are the shooter Txemi Urtasun and the youngster Tomas Satoransky, one of the most interesting European prospects.

The head coach is Joan Plaza, who already won the Eurocup as the head coach in 2007 with Real Madrid where there was also Louis Bullock.

Treviso has the homecourt factor but Sevilla is a tough team to defeat because of his deep rotation and because it's an experienced and talented team. Treviso must play with a lot of energy and must have a good match from many players; we're sure that this semifinal will satisfy the attendance of Palaverde and also the basketball fans who will watch the match on TV.