Scottish League Cup: St Johnstone v Hibs on 23 January, Livingston v St Mirren on 24th
- Published
Hibs 'no different' with cup belief - Ross
Hibernian and St Johnstone will be first up at Hampden Park after the dates for January's Scottish League Cup semi-finals were announced.
Livingston and St Mirren will face up the following day, on Sunday 23 January, at the national stadium.
The Saturday showpiece will kick-off at 17:30 GMT, with the Sunday game starting at 16:00.
Celtic have won the trophy for the past four years but were knocked out by Ross County in the second round.
The Highland side also defeated Hibs, who lifted the trophy for a third time in 2006-07, the last time the Edinburgh outfit were in the final, in 2015-16.
Hibs head coach Jack Ross realises the opportunity considering both Celtic and Rangers, beaten in their quarter-final by St Mirren, are not involved.
"Recent history shows that at least one of those teams are in the latter stages of the competition if not both of them," he said. "It's an unusual occurrence to have neither.
"Whenever that happens, those teams that are left in the competition see it as increasing their chances of winning it, so we are no different than the other three teams in it. I have spoken often about it being one of our targets for the season and, by winning the game against Alloa, we have taken a step closer to doing that."
Semi-final opponents St Johnstone have never won the League Cup, losing twice in the final, their last appearance ending in defeat by Rangers in 1999. Livingston lifted the trophy in their only final appearance, beating Hibs in 2003-04.
St Mirren are the most recent winners of the four semi-finalists, lifting the trophy for the first team by beating Hearts in 2012-13.
Buddies manager Jim Goodwin said his side had to move on from the high of Wednesday's win and concentrate on moving away from the bottom of the Premiership.
"We're back down to earth now as we've got a huge game to focus on," he said ahead of hosting fellow semi-finalists St Johnstone on Saturday. "We want to get into the habit of going far in cup competitions, but the league remains our bread and butter and the importance of Saturday's game is huge."