By Jim Fenton, GateHouse News
Service
ABINGTON - He became the first boys' basketball player at
Abington High School to score 1,000 career points during the winter
of 2004-05. One season later, Billy Carey was playing pickup games
for his only basketball activity while attending Bryant University.
He could have been a walk-on player at the Rhode Island school,
spending a majority of time on the bench, but Carey wasn't
interested in that.
"I was pretty set on just being done with basketball forever,''
Carey said. "I was kind of sick of it after playing it for 15
straight years.''
As the days and months went by, though, Carey found himself with
a desire to continue his basketball career.
Unhappy at Bryant, Carey transferred to Framingham State College
in the fall semester of 2006, joining a program he had looked at
while a senior at Abington.
"I got the itch to play again,'' Carey said. "I guess I just
couldn't give it up for another couple of years.''
The Abington resident, a senior guard, has made the most of his
stay at Framingham State, surpassing the 1,000-point mark earlier
this season and developing into one of the top 3-point threats in
the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference.
With six regular-season games remaining in his career, Carey has
1,095 points to rank 12th all-time at Framingham State. He has made
235 shots from 3-point range, shooting 38 percent, and is averaging
11.3 points in 97 games.
Carey will soon go over 1,100 points, just like he did for the
Green Wave before graduating in '05.
"To get (1,000 points) in high school and college is a pretty
cool thing,'' said Carey, who reached the milestone on Nov. 27 with
a 3-pointer against Embry-Riddle University at the UMass-Boston
Harbor Tournament. "It's a big accomplishment (in college). You
look up on the wall and there's like 20 or so people who've done
it. You think about how many players have played at this school and
to be in the top 20, that's pretty special.''
Carey jumped right back into competitive basketball in his first
season with the Rams and averaged 13.5 points while making 22
starts in the 2006-07 season. He made 67 3-pointers the next year,
averaging 12.1 points, and had a career-best 72 3-pointers while
scoring 10.7 points a game last season.
Bothered by a knee injury since the fifth game of this season,
Carey is still leading the Rams for a fourth year in a row with 33
3-pointers and is averaging 8.1 points.
"He's one of the deadliest shooters in our conference,'' said
Framingham State coach Don Spellman. "The first two years, he was
basically our go-to guy and then the last couple of years as we got
more athletic and added some pretty good post players, he's kind of
become our Randy Moss. Usually, the best defender has to stay with
him.
"It kind of opens it up for the rest of us, so his statistics
have kind of gone down. He's the type of guy that's going to draw
attention, which opens it up for the rest of us.''
Carey went 4-for-5 from 3-point range against Fitchburg State
last Saturday and was 5-for-7 against the Massachusetts College of
Liberal Arts in the previous week.
"He's a catch-and-shoot kid,'' Spellman said. "He's not a
standstill shooter. We basically have to run him off screens, and
at this level, it's how you can manufacture it coming off screens
because it's too easy to defend.
"To Billy's credit, that's what he does extremely well. He can
find the opening and uses screens very well and he doesn't need any
kind of time to get that shot off. In this league full of athletes,
he never gets a clean look. For him to put up those numbers is
great.''
Carey has adjusted his game during the four years at Framingham
State, going from a player relied upon heavily to create scoring
chances to the main long-range threat.
"My first couple of years, I used to be more of a creator and
slasher,'' said Carey, who is employed by the Red Sox to work near
Gates A and D at Fenway Park. "Slowly and surely, I've become more
of a shooter. Once we got a different mix of guys in here, probably
the second semester of my second year, we got a lot more athletic
and deep and every position.
"There were more people slashing and I had an easier time just
getting shots up. I developed my shot to become more of a 3-point
shooter than I was.''
Carey, who has started 69 games for the Rams, has been coming
off the bench in recent weeks, a move for which he volunteered.
Carey suffered a knee injury in late November and will require
surgery once the season is over.
"I just thought it was old age at first,'' said Carey of the
injury that caused him to doubt whether he'd play in the second
semester. "It turned out to be a little bit more. It does affect me
laterally on defensive slides. I feel a little pressure, a little
discomfort. It does take a little bit away from my jump shot. I
used to jump as high as I could, and now it's more of a set shot.''
Carey, whose older brothers Tom and Mike played at Suffolk
University, will deal with surgery following the season, which he
hopes will end with a first trip to the NCAA Div. 3 tournament.
"I couldn't ask for a better time here,'' said Carey, who
graduates in May. "I got to play four more years and it feels like
four months. I can't believe I'm a senior. I feel like I've been
doing this a couple of weeks now, but I guess it's got to end
sometime.''
