Manny Harris wasn’t sure how much he’d play Friday night. Michigan basketball coach John Beilein was conservative with him for much of the preseason, allowing him to rest his pulled hamstrings.

By the end of the game, Harris had his answer. He playing a primary role in No. 15 Michigan’s 73-54 exhibition win over Division II Wayne State.

And it appeared his hamstrings - save for a halftime stretch on the floor with a trainer - weren’t bothering him.

“Nah, I didn’t know how (Beilein) was thinking,” Harris said. “If I was hurt or not, I’d still be wanting to play. I was happy I was able to play that much.”

This, though, was Beilein’s plan. After resting the All-America candidate and All-Big Ten first-teamer for good portions of the past three weeks and with a full off-day approaching Sunday, this offered Harris a chance to get a full cardio workout and an opportunity to run the court.

He responded, leading Michigan with 25 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals in 29 minutes.

“I haven’t really practiced full go in like two weeks,” Harris said. “So I felt a little rusty at times. You could tell on my shooting and stuff.

“My adrenaline was rushing, and I was able to overcome it.”

The game allowed Michigan to work out early-season kinks.

It’s part of why Beilein played Harris as much as he did. And also part of the reason he left sophomore guard Zack Novak in the game for 28 minutes.

Novak, Beilein said, struggled with his shot all week in practice. On Friday, Novak shot himself out of it, hitting five three-pointers and scoring 15 points.

“That’s why I left him out there, too,” Beilein said. “Because he gives us hustle plays and so many things. For him to get five three’s today, I don’t know if he’s hit five three’s in a week, probably five each week.”

Wayne State tried to creep back into the game in the second half, cutting the Michigan lead to 48-37 with 12:47 left.

Michigan then went on a 9-0 run to put the lead back at 20 points, allowing Beilein to substitute freely.

Overall, though, Beilein seemed happy with his team’s performance in an exhibition game. He liked his team’s attitude, saw a healthy progress out of Harris and seemed impressed by the play of freshman Darius Morris, who started at point guard.

Going into the game, Beilein said he wanted to stick with a nine-man rotation and for the most part did, starting Harris, Novak, Morris, sophomore guard Laval Lucas-Perry and senior forward DeShawn Sims. He went off the bench with sophomore guard Stu Douglass, junior guard Anthony Wright, freshman guard Matt Vogrich and senior forward Zack Gibson.

“I think we played well,” Novak said. “Coming out in an exhibition like this, I think we were able to work on a lot of things. They have a really good team, I think. They were really quick and shot the ball pretty well.

“They were definitely no slouch, and we responded well.”

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.