By Bobby Narang
One of the biggest stories of the first month of the 2023-24 high school basketball scene in Chicagoland wasn’t taking place on the court.
Or, at least on the basketball court.
Hinsdale South senior guard Brendan Savage, who averaged 11.6 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.6 assist per game last season and earned his second straight West Suburban Conference Gold Division All-Conference selection, did not make his basketball team this season.
His mother, Erin Savage, sued the school district along with several employees earlier this month after her son was cut from the team, alleging that first-year Hinsdale South head basketball coach Mike Belcaster cut her son after tryouts due to retaliation for her family filing a complaint last season against former coach Michael Moretti.
The lawsuit attracted national television along with numerous Chicagoland television stations to bring attention to the unique case. Last week, Erin Savage filed a motion asking for a preliminary injunction to force the school to place her son on the basketball team.
It worked.
He was officially put on the team last week but sat out the home game against Glenbard South. Three day later, on last Friday night, the 6-foot-3 Savage played in the road loss against Downers Grove South.
Savage and head coach Belcaster were unavailable to talk to the media after the game, per a Hinsdale South employee. Coming off the bench against Downers Grove South, Savage scored two points and attempted two shots and grabbed two rebounds in just over 15 minutes.
“I was just happy to see him get in,” Erin Savage said after Friday’s game. “It would’ve been nice if we could’ve been more competitive in the game, but I’m sure he’s excited when he got in and will be ready to get back to the drawing board and build their team up and be prepared for the next game.”
On the other end, Downers Grove South head coach Zach Miller said his players didn’t let outside distractions affect them.
“I’m super proud,” Miller said. “We all knew about (Savage) and it was pretty hard to avoid. We addressed it, knew it and I said since the beginning of the year that we have an experienced group. We leaned on our older guys. We had a collective effort. This is a rivalry game. We wanted to have fun but do it the right way. I think they enjoyed it.
“We told our guys that there would be a lot of media tonight and this was going to get a lot of coverage tonight, so this was an opportunity for us to do things and take advantage of it.”