Morning Box Score: Bulls Too Strong, Too Tall, Too Fast, Too Good Versus Pacers

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 30, 2011 3:05PM

Bulls 110, Pacers 89: Lat night's game against Indiana was one of those games the Bulls were expected to win. Give credit to the pacers for hanging tough with the Central Division leaders through three quarters. Pacers forwards Josh McRoberts (20 points, 8 rebounds) and Danny Granger (19 points, 5 rebounds) took advantage of two of the Bulls' weaknesses: physical play in the paint and Carlos Boozer's hesitancy to play defense.

The Bulls tightened the screws in the final quarter. Boozer led the way with 24 points and 10 rebounds, followed by Derrick Rose's 20 points and 7 assists and Luol Deng's 19 points as the Bulls improved to 11-0 against Central Division opponents and an astounding 21-1 when holding opponents under 90 points. Boozer may not like the grunt work of defense, but the rest of the Bulls have adopted to Tom Thibodeau's philosophy.

Ohio State 58, Northwestern 57: The undefeated and top-ranked Buckeyes had all that they could handle yesterday against a Wildcats team at Wels-Ryan Arena playing without NU star John Shurna, who was held out with a concussion. A late steal by David Lighty led to the tie-breaking free throw by Buckeyes freshman stud Jared Sullinger (21 points), allowing Ohio State to leave Evanston with a sigh of relief. Wildcats senior guard Michael Thompson had 13 of his 16 points in the second half to lead NU.

Cleveland State 81, Loyola 70: After a good start to the season with its non-conference schedule, Loyola is starting to fall back to the bottom tier pack in the Horizon League. They aren't UIC (which earned its first Horizon League win last night with an 81-63 win over Youngstown State), but the Ramblers aren't the Vikings, either. Walt Gibler led the Ramblers with 25 points and 9 rebounds. Cleveland State was led by Norris Cole with 17 points and 9 assists.