HOUSTON -- Memphis guard Derrick Rose was not getting stitches.

HOUSTON -- Memphis guard Derrick Rose was not getting stitches.

You see, Rose has a fear of needles. No, make that a debilitating phobia of them.

He was told he needed as many as four stitches to close up a gash above his right eye after a collision during Memphis' 92-74 win over Michigan State on Friday.

That news ruined any celebration he had in mind after scoring a game-high 27 points despite missing almost eight minutes in the second half dealing with the injury.


"I'm terrified of needles," he said. "If I would have got stitches, they would have had to stick a needle right above my eye. So I was pouting, stormed out of the locker room. I was mad."

Rose isn't sure what brought on his fear, but he vividly remembers when he was 7, he fell off his bicycle and another child ran over his head with a bike, causing a large wound on the back of his head.

"The nurses at the hospital were holding him down and he was so scared he broke away from them and got up," said his mother, Brenda Rose. "So they had to tape him to the gurney and do the stitches. He was mad at everyone that day."

Considering his problem, some may find it strange that Rose has five tattoos, some rather elaborate.

"You really never see the needle," he explained. "You just see an object that is going back and forth. With a needle, you've got to look at it and, man, it's totally different."