John Beilein's phone started with one text message Tuesday night from his brother, traveling through Syracuse, N.Y. on his way to Albany telling the Michigan basketball coach merely “It’s close.”

His old school, Division II Le Moyne, was playing No. 25 Syracuse in an exhibition that night, a cross-town game that shouldn’t have been close.

Then came another text telling Beilein that Le Moyne had won and soon after, the onslaught came.

“My phone started going off,” Beilein said. “I figured it was all the same and it was getting past my bedtime so I wasn’t going to (return them), but there about 10 or 15 messages the next day.

“'Finally Le Moyne has a good coach' was one of them.”

So while Friday’s exhibition game for No. 15 Michigan against Wayne State won’t count in the standings, it’ll count in perception of this Wolverines program and a sense of pride.

Just because one program did it, though, doesn’t mean Michigan is worried about a Division II upset happening to them. And the players didn’t seem too stunned by the loss, either.

“It happens in basketball,” senior forward DeShawn Sims said. “Probably people who don’t play basketball wouldn’t understand, but it can happen, you know.

“If you come out and don’t jump on a team early and let them stick around, they can
end up beating you.”

While a win is the goal, Friday also gives Beilein a chance to experiment with lineups and different versions of what he might do throughout the season. The third-year coach said he’ll likely play nine or 10 guys in the rotation - sophomores Stu Douglass, Laval Lucas-Perry and Darius Morris at the point, freshman Matt Vogrich and junior Manny Harris at the other guard, sophomore Zack Novak and junior Anthony Wright on the wing and then Zack Gibson and DeShawn Sims in the post.

Redshirt freshman Ben Cronin, Beilein said, is the 10th guy right now.

“We do not want to lose this game now but we’ll be trying to get 9 or 10 guys ready for our first game, which is in a week,” Beilein said. “So yeah, we’ll be treating this like a game-like situation, as will Wayne State. I’m sure they will.

“So it’s, you want to make this as close to the real thing and the real thing is you don’t play 15 people in a game.”

That might be the most important thing. Novak remembers getting ready for the season to start a year ago when he was a freshman.

There was a lot to digest, a lot to wonder about. Year two is easier for Novak, he understands what the freshmen are likely going through this week.

It’s why he thinks getting to play an exhibition in front of fans instead of merely playing a closed scrimmage against another team is a helpful thing.

“It’s great that we can get out there and play a game that doesn’t necessarily count but it’s a game,” Novak said. “You’re going to go out there to compete to win. And just to kind of get your feet wet, especially for the freshmen, and the team as a whole, we’ve never really gotten together like that.

“It’s going to be a good experience, I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from it and what we need to work on.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.