New Northampton head boys’ basketball Matt Scholl has been surprised by his team’s 2-4 start to begin this week.

From coaches to players, it is a transition year for the Konkrete Kids from their state semifinal, 21-8 season from a year ago.

Offensively, the Kids lost approximately 96 percent of their offense, but their defensive effort is on track to again be one of the league’s best.

“We’re learning, and we’re having trouble scoring,” said Scholl. “Our defense has been great, but we just can’t consistently score.

“The effort is there. But we lost a week of practice and our football players only had five days of practice before we started. We usually had three weeks before the season started, but this year we had two.”

Scholl has looked to senior guard Tyler Kauffman, who has been the Kids’ leading scorer through six games. Junior Tristen Pinnock also has been a steady contributor to the new-look Kids’ offense. Kauffman and Pinnock are both averaging nine points per game. Junior JJ Kolumber is averaging eight points per contest.

“Tyler has been very consistent,” said Scholl. “He has been doing an overall good job, and he has been shooting extremely well.

“Tristen is such an incredible athlete. He can do a number of things for us. We have had a couple of different leading scorers, and we have guys who average between four and eight points a game.

“That’s what I expected. We don’t have the scorers we had last year.”

Scholl sees daily progress in practice.

“They’re hustling and they want to learn,” he said. “Our offense just has been slow to click. But if you look around, there are a lot of teams in the same situation. There are the better teams that are the exception like Emmaus, Parkland, and Pocono Mountain West.

“Our defense has been good, and that’s a big plus.”

Northampton had a light schedule this week with Bethlehem Catholic Tuesday before they will open against Pocono Mountain East in the Pine Grove Christmas tournament Dec. 27. Scholl plans to use the off time wisely.

The Kids are in the midst of a three-game losing streak – their last loss was to East Stroudsburg North (58-46) – and they have dropped four of five games since a convincing opening win over Northwestern (58-30).

“We’re in school this week until Friday, and we plan to practice through Saturday,” said Scholl. “We’ll use those days as the week we usually had before the games started. That should help us.

“We just need some more time together on the court.”