Early-season victories in men's basketball carry a lot of weight with NCAA tournament selection committee chair Mike Slive. That's good news for teams sitting on the expanding tournament bubble with three days until Selection Sunday.

Arizona (19-12), for example, struggled down the stretch, losing four of five going into the Pacific-10 tournament but should still contend for an at-large bid because of pivotal December wins against Kansas and Gonzaga.

"The best way to evaluate a team is based on a full body of work," said Slive, the Southeastern Conference commissioner who spoke generally of his mindset Wednesday in a teleconference. "Otherwise, in a sense you're going to have November and December being an exhibition season, and it's not."

In the past some committee members have placed less importance on early season wins. Two years ago then-chair Gary Walters said, "I wouldn't get too carried away with something like that." In 2005, then-chair Bob Bowlsby said, "If you were really bad early and really good late, that's a positive. If it's reverse, it's a negative."

That's not the case for Slive, one of 10 committee members.

"Conference tournaments are exciting and serve a purpose," he said. "But it is important for the committee to not get so caught up in what a team does this week and overlook what it has done over the course of the last four months."

Michigan (19-12) could stand out to the committee with its December victory against Duke and its November win against UCLA. Other examples: UNLV (21-9) won at Louisville, and Florida (22-9) beat Washington on a neutral court.

Slive also stressed the importance of road wins and victories against teams in the top 50 of the Ratings Percentage Index. Losing road records could hurt teams such as Arizona, Maryland (18-12), Providence (18-12) and Northwestern (17-12).

San Diego State, Temple, South Carolina and Davidson are in a bind, each with only one win against top-50 teams, according to CollegeRPI.com, as of Wednesday.