Valiant Bank and Davies Paint-Probac --- the only undefeated teams in the 7th Tan Kek Pin Memorial Cup Basketball Tournament --- hope to ride on the momentum of their previous victories when they gun for automatic semifinal berths tonight at the Po Hang Gym Bacolod Tay Tung High School.

Valiant takes on Val Motors, which grabbed the second seat by beating Summit, in the curtain-raiser at 6:45 p.m. with loser relegated to the quarterfinal round, where it will join Lopue's Travel Center, Summit, AA Electrical and Province of Negros Occidental.

Davies collides with defending champion BBC in the second game.

As group 1 topnotcher, Davies, led by former St. La Salle varsity standouts Peewee Demonteverde and Ryan Concha, is hard-pressed to duplicate the form that saw them roll over the opposition in their past six games.

The highlight of its campaign so far was when it nipped Val Motors, 91-90, in a pulsating showdown between two pre-tournament favorites.

Valiant stamped its class against BBC, 76-73, last week but it will be a different story when it meets Val, which is out to bounce back from the defeat to Davies.

Johnson Salazar and former tournament MVP Warren Alintano are expected to spearhead the charge. Bobby Cepeda and Ryan Hugnatan are also expected to come up with huge games to counter Val, which has been getting solid numbers from Hernie Tamayo, Nene Sibaya as well as Cesar Ordas throughout the tournament.

BBC will once again need sterling performances from reigning MVP Robert Bunol, Rico Cabato and Joebert Pastias to hurdle Davies, which uses a sleek run-and-gun game to beat opponents. *CPT

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Four teams fight for 2 semis slots
Reg'l Palaro opens today