Just like last week, I’ll admit I was impressed with all the questions that flowed into my Inbox for today’s mailbag. They were deep and varied and I hope I do an adequate job of providing some answers.

(If you read this and would like to ask something next week, please email me at jthomson@LoHud.com. Just include the question, your first name and your hometown.)

We start with PUPPAS from DOBBS FERRY who has this to say…The Dobbs Ferry varsity girls are looking good. Do you think they will win the section? And what do you think of Dobbs Ferry freshman Jackie Giuliano?

Well Puppas, I’d bet the second question is close to your heart and that’s OK. I wish I had better first-hand evidence than what I have — I’ve only seen Dobbs Ferry once this season — but obviously Jackie has a great future ahead.

She’s already 5-foot-10, which helps the Eagles a great deal considering Lauren Emerson, their other tallest player, is better on the wing than on the low box. Also, Giuliano has been an effective scorer as a freshman, averaging 11 PPG. She’s shown the ability to rebound as well. Take those two factors and there’s no reason to think she won’t be one of the better players in Class C for a long time.

As for winning the section, that’s going to be tough. Haldane — no matter what happened last week — is the favorite until proven otherwise. Fourteen Section 1 titles in a row will do that. And obviously Blind Brook is tough as well. I think the greatest plus for the Eagles is that they may not have played their best ball yet. With Emerson only a few games into her season, I’d imagine Dobbs still has more ironing out ahead of it.

DAVE from CHAPPAQUA has a fair gripe…Is there a requirement in Section 1 that the court must be a particular size? For instance, I have to believe that Ursuline is a good five feet shorter and several feet narrower than (the court) at Greeley. I would say Ursuline’s court (and Haldane’s for that matter) is even smaller than Chappaqua’s Bell Middle School court. I could care less about regular season games, but shouldn’t all sectional games be played on full length and width courts?

Dave, as I said above, that is a very fair point. I’ve never taken a tape measure to a court — something tells me Beth Wooters would have me running suicides before I had a chance to finish — but I’m sure there are discreptencies between home courts around Section 1.

I will ask around, but I don’t know of a requirement in Section 1, perhaps because there are no schools that can’t play on their home courts during sectionals so it has never become an issue. I’ll tell you this, though: I have no problem with it because it’s part of a home court advantage. A smaller or larger floor is no different than a baseball or softball field with short and/or deep fences, a golf course with longer or shorter holes, or a turf football field vs. one with natural grass.

I know in hockey, playoff games are not held at either the Palisades Center or Ebersole Rink in White Plains because the facility is not up to a certain standard. I don’t know of another sport where that is true.

Both the baseball field (short fences) and the basketball court (insanely slippery court) at my high school had characteristics that differentiated them from the playing surfaces at other schools, but that’s all part of the game. I personally don’t see this as a problem.

JOHN, from all the way on the other side of the border in CONNECTICUT, wants to know the following about the playoffs…What do you think about the current tiebreaking system? While I think it is better than in the past, it makes it difficult for the middle of the line teams to want to play better programs.

I’ll admit, I had to do research on this one. There are two criteria for determining tiebreakers for playoff seeding: 1. Head-to-head records and 2. Committee evaluation. The first criteria is obviously totally. The second, although subjective, does take into account strength of schedule.

That said, I think John may have been asking about the point system Section 1 will use to determine playoff seedings. It awards extra points to teams which beat opponents in larger classifications. For example, Haldane earned bonus points for beating Carmel, but Carmel would not have earned bonus points for beating Haldane (a much smaller school). Likewise, Yonkers High School (Class AA) would not earn bonus points for beating Lakeland (a Class A school), which is patently absurd considering that would be the biggest upset of the year.

Is this system, which doesn’t account for the quality of the opponent (only the enrollment), ideal? No. But I think we have to ask whether or not it is necessary to devise a convoluted scoring system to account for the strength of every single team. I ask, How would that be possible? I don’t know that it is.

RICH, who is presumably from HASTINGS, wonders…With the new alignment where teams are placed in leagues lower than their actual class, what happens when All-Section teams are picked? Will players crowd out those in the lower class, e.g. Pearl River and Ardsley, or are those spots left for the players in the proper class? It’s hard enough to compete without throwing in the RTCs (residential treatment centers) and catholic schools, but now higher class schools?

Rich, I understand your pain. But in the past this is how these teams were picked by the section: the coaches in each conference divy up all-section bids by league, with stronger leagues being awarded more bids and weaker leagues being awarded fewer (and that goes for all-section, all-section honorable mention, and all league). For instance, no league in Section 1 had more all-section players than League I-A (White Plains, Scarsdale, New Ro, etc.) and rightfully so.

Because that is the case, I’d imagine the balance will depend strictly on how strong a league is and any league with Pearl River added to it will no doubt be labeled a strong league.

I have to say, I don’t think any players last season were wrongly snubbed because of the numbers game. I wouldn’t fear it happening now. The coaches will make adjustments as they see fit.

Also, only our paper selects all-star teams with catholic school players included. That is because we pick a Westchester/Putnam All-Star team (first team, second team, honorable mention and player and coach of the year) and a Rockland All-County team. It’s not an all-section team.

Which leads us to…

CHRIS from PARTS UNKNOWN asks…At this point in the season, who are the top five nomination for player of the year? What is the criteria to even be nominated?

First of all, Jake will select the All-County team, so I don’t have the lowdown on that. As for the Westchester/Putnam player of the year, it is a long, long way from being decided. What happens in the playoffs has a HUGE impact on the all-star teams and the player of the year because you have to give respect to the MVPs of the best teams.

In Rockland last season, for example, my colleague John Humenn watched Kelly O’Connell lead Nanuet to the Class B final four and it earned her player of the year. Was she the POY on Jan. 31, 2006? Probably not. But she definitely earned it. Same goes for me and Ossining’s Melissa Awerdick two years ago. Awerdick hobbled through the first half of the season on a bum knee but rallied to lead her team back to the Class AA championship game. She definitely made progress as the season wore on, at least in my eyes.

I do not pick these teams alone either. I will ask for the advice of my colleagues and of coaches in each of the classes who I know have seen different teams of different shapes and sizes play. To me, their imput is very important.

Right now, the members of our preseason Fab Five — White Plains’ Liz Flooks and Kim Adams; Scarsdale’s Jackie Alemany; Lakeland’s Amy Voelkel; and Haldane’s Brittany Shields — are all somewhere in the mix. So are others who have elevated their games, like Lakeland’s Sarah Benischek, Putnam Valley’s Christine Kemp, and White Plains’ Angelei Aguirre, but there are even more out there I probably haven’t considered yet. You know why? Right now it’s impossible to know gauge a race when the most important legs are yet to be run.

What if Ursuline or Putnam Valley pulls off a few upsets and wins the gold ball? What if Lakeland, White Plains or Haldane wins a state championship? You never know what’s going to happen, not in January.

Ask me on April 1st (after the all-star section comes out) and I’ll tell you exactly why the chosen all-stars became all-stars. But please know this isn’t the Heisman Trophy race; you don’t have to be a preseason favorite to win, just the most deserving.