because Beilein wanted to get the freshmen's feet wet against an obviously inferior opponent. Max has already played plenty of mop up time and each minute on the court of that game was probably more useful to the freshmen than it would've been to Max.
He'll be an option at the 5 for us this year, though I suspect he'll be solidly #3 behind Donnal and Doyle. Gotta admit, though, his outside shot was looking mighty nice. Unfortunately for him future opponents likely won't give him so much room to get those shots off.