When Tennessee played North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament a year ago, Candace Parker had to do it all, no matter that she was a redshirt freshman coming off a year lost to knee injuries.

When that game ended, with Tennessee losing by 12 points in the regional final, Volunteers senior Shanna Zolman told Parker, “Girl, this is your team now.”

Actually, it was then, is now and will be as long as Parker is in college.

But there is a difference, as Tennessee and North Carolina meet again, this time in tonight’s Final Four semifinal that looks like the championship with its matchup of No. 1 seeds.

No. 4 Rutgers meets No. 3 LSU in the other semifinal in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.

Now Parker doesn’t have to rebound, bring the ball up, run to the low post and wait for a pass that often wouldn’t come. Improved guard play from Shannon Bobbitt, a junior-college transfer, and junior Alexis Hornbuckle, who had a broken wrist a year ago, has given the Vols more weapons and better chances to use their biggest.

“(Bobbitt) knows what they want her to do, and a lot of it is to get the ball to Candace,” North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said.

The trick, as Hatchell said, is to avoid having everyone else simply wait for Parker to do everything.

“Sometimes when you have a player that good, and you call them your go-to player, if they are having an off night, the rest of the team can get caught standing and watching them,” Hatchell said.

The stunning thing is how few off-nights Parker has had this season. There really were just two: at Alabama, where she made just 3 of 10 shots but the Vols won 80-51; and against LSU in the Southeastern Conference tourney semifinals, when she was 2 of 11 from the field and Tennessee lost 63-54.

“She is an incredibly unselfish player, and that has allowed us to stay together as a team offensively and not feel we’re all watching Candace play,” Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said.

Tennessee's Candace Parker puts up a shot. The Lady Vols practiced Saturday in Cleveland in preparation for their semifinal bout with North Carolina today.

She has been something to watch in the NCAA tourney.

Parker has been the team’s leading scorer and rebounder in each of the four tourney games. Her scoring (25.8 ppg) and rebounding (10.3 rpg) are considerably higher than her pre-tourney averages (18.5 and 9.4).

Her best game of the season was the most recent, in the regional final against Mississippi: In just 25 minutes of what she quickly turned into a rout, Parker had 24 points, a career-high 14 rebounds, five blocks, three assists and two steals. It was her 20th double-double of the season.

“(That) was clearly her most impressive performance of the year at both ends,” Summitt said. “She took it to another level defensively.”

Last year Parker tried to do too much in the regional final against North Carolina, forcing and rushing passes that led to eight turnovers. She has had six or fewer turnovers in every game this season and fewer than four in 26 of her 34 games.

“The thing about Candace is she is very composed out of trap situations and has the ability to handle that and find open teammates,” Summitt said.

The only thing tempering Parker’s – and Tennessee’s – impressive run to the Final Four is upsets reduced their obstacles significantly.

The Dayton bracket looked like the toughest, with defending national champion Maryland, Big 12 champion Oklahoma and Big Ten regular-season champion Ohio State as the second, third and fourth seeds.

But Ohio State lost in the first round, Maryland in the second and Oklahoma in the third, meaning Tennessee had to defeat just the Nos. 16, 8, 13 and 7 seeds.

“It was a different road than we anticipated,” Summitt said. “Hopefully that won’t hurt us and maybe even help us get ready to face a great North Carolina team.”

The Tar Heels beat the 16, 9, 5 and 2 seeds in the Dallas bracket. They also defeated Tennessee, 70-57, on Dec. 3 despite Parker’s 27 points and 10 rebounds.

“North Carolina was just so much better than us (in December),” Summitt said. “It remains to be seen how much we have improved.”