Summer on the hardwood ended for both King’s Fork and Nansemond River high schools on Tuesday, the first day of the playoffs in the King’s Fork summer boys’ basketball league. But the teams’ coaches were still able to accomplish their chief goal of evaluating their talent.

Assistant coaches took the reins for the Bulldogs and Warriors at this point in the off-season, allowing the head coaches to view things from afar or attend to other duties.

Before summing up what his team showed him through its 10 games in the league, Bulldogs assistant coach Theotis Porter addressed the final game on Tuesday, which King’s Fork lost 39-38 to Menchville High School.

“I think my guys got a little complacent, because at half, we were up 22-10,” he said, later noting KF was “the more veteran squad compared to their squad.”

The Bulldogs had opportunities at the end, but the ball just didn’t fall through the hoop, Porter said. “Sometimes it happens that way.”

There were both high and low points in King’s Fork’s 5-5 summer season, he said. Since there was limited opportunity to practice set plays, players had more freedom to come up with things on the fly.

“We try to give the guys an opportunity to show the new things they’ve added to their games,” he said. “All in all, I did see some good things from some guys.”

Helping the Bulldogs further will be the Heritage High School-hosted team camp starting on Friday.

Nansemond River (5-5) fell 46-45 against Kempsville High School on Tuesday, and assistant coach Craig Frost readily cited the deciding factors of the game.

“They out-rebounded us, and they out-hustled us,” he said.

But he said he was not disappointed with his team’s overall showing in the summer league.

“I think it accomplished our goal,” he said. “We’re trying not to focus much on wins and losses, but improvement.”

He saw improvement and ensured younger players got court time.

“They got valuable experience playing basketball with the varsity guys,” Frost said.

Because Nansemond River’s program lost 10 of its 13 varsity players from last year, Frost had a big task this summer.

“The turnover and getting these new guys incorporated was a challenge,” he said.

Despite their varsity inexperience, they helped produce a highlight of beating Heritage High School during the league’s regular season. Heritage was the league’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs.