The electronic excitation of the valence electron of alkali atoms in collisions with noble gas atoms has been studied with a procedure that combines l-dependent pseudopotentials including two and three-body polarization terms and a first principles description of the dynamics based on the eikonal approximation of atomic motions and time-dependent molecular orbitals. We discuss the effects of the atomic basis set size on the calculations. We present results for interaction potentials and couplings, the time-dependence of atomic populations, and state-to-state integral cross sections in the keV range. Our results for Li-He, Li-Ne, Na-He, and Na-Ne are in very good agreement with other theoretical and experimental data. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.