The gasp from the Pitt fans at the Petersen Events Center last night said it all.

Four… The gasp from the Pitt fans at the Petersen Events Center last night said it all.

Four minutes into the first half of Pitt’s second-round NCAA Tournament matchup with No. 1 seed Tennessee, Marcedes Walker planted herself in the paint and fielded an entry pass from the right side. Walker, surrounded by orange and white defenders, dribbled once, spun left and shot.

Tennessee’s Candace Parker then rose from behind Walker, seemingly out of nowhere, and swatted it.

Cue the crowd. This was Tennessee. This was an elite and storied women’s basketball program that has won six national championships. It was on a different level.

“They’re really, really awesome,” Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said after the Volunteers beat Pitt, 68-54.

Although the Panthers may not be on Tennessee’s level just yet, they’re as close as they’ve ever been. And with a 24-9 record, Pitt finishes the year having won more games in a single season than it ever has. To boot, Pitt cut the Volunteer lead to single digits several times in the second half last night, never letting Tennessee cruise.

“I think tonight’s going to probably be a wake-up call for a lot of people, seeing how Pitt played against our team,” Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt said after the game. “Certainly being in this tournament and playing the way that they played will give them respect.”

But respect alone couldn’t win the game for the Panthers. Parker, a 6-foot-4 sophomore finished with a game-high 30 points and 12 rebounds.

“Tonight my goal was to bring energy on the defensive end, offensively, just to have a presence,” Parker said.

And Summitt, who’s won 942 games as Tennessee’s head coach, knows just how much of a presence Parker has.

“It’s pretty special to have a player like that,” she said.

Parker and the Volunteers (30-3) seemed effortless in their execution en route to an eventual 40-24 halftime lead. They fluently moved the ball along the perimeter until they got wide-open shots. Volunteers guard Shannon Bobbitt hit two of them on consecutive possessions midway through the first to give her team a 13-point lead.

“We have a lot of different weapons,” Parker said after the game. “Shannon’s capable of hitting the outside shot. I have all the confidence in the world in how our offense is working.”

Summitt’s team was just as good on defense, using full-court pressure and an active two-three zone to pester the Panthers into eight first-half turnovers.

And Parker continually reminded everyone why she’s a national player of the year candidate. With 3:48 left in the first, Parker dribbled right from the top of the key, pulled up from 12 feet and hit nothing but the bottom of the net.

A minute later, she did the exact same thing. Before the half was done, she had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

But the most troubling part of the first half for Pitt wasn’t Parker’s performance. It came on the last play when Walker fell flat on her back trying to grab a rebound and didn’t get up.

The injured Walker basically represented a Panther team that got banged up and bullied around in the first half, which made whatever head coach Agnus Berenato said to her team at halftime all the more impressive.

The Panthers came out running in the second. A Shavonte Zellous fast-break layup capped an 8-0 run they completed in the first two minutes before Tennessee called a timeout. Zellous finished the game with 18 points while Walker had a team-high 19.

“Obviously on their home court they were going to make a run,” Parker said after the game. “We needed to make sure we stopped it and I think we handled it well.”

And they did. Everything play Pitt made to cut into the Volunteer lead, Tennessee countered. Soon, the Volunteers were up by 16 points with a minute to play and on their way to its 26th straight Sweet 16 appearance.

While that streak may seem unreachable, Walker mentioned after the loss that the game was valuable experience for a Pitt team that’s steadily improved in each of the last four years.

“We’re going to be ready to play a team like that next year and get over that hump,” the junior said after the game.

Berenato felt the same way.

“Next year we’re going to be back – bigger, stronger and faster.”