Basketball is all about timing.
If you try to steal a pass too late or too early, the player you're guarding gets an easy layup. If you try to block a shot too late or too early, you send a shooter to the free throw line. If you release the ball too late or too early, your shot won't fall.
Basketball is a lot like life, at least it was for Alexis Tolefree.
Tolefree grew up in Conway wanting to play for the Razorbacks, but the timing wasn't right. She and Conway teammate Jordan Danberry put up unforgettable seasons at Conway High.
"Going into Jordan's junior year and Alexis' sophomore year we really didn't know how that was going to gel," Ashley Hutchcraft, Tolefree's high school coach, said. "It gelled really well, and that's the year we won the state championship game. Having those two on the floor for a couple of years was really special."
In two years at Conway, Tolefree and Danberry combined to lead the Wampus Cats to a 50-12 record, a second-place finish in state and a state title. But it soon became apparent that once she graduated, Tolefree would not join her old teammate at Arkansas.
"It was just horrible timing," Hutchcraft said. "She always had the ability to be a Razorback it's just (former Arkansas coach) Jimmy Dykes signs Jordan Danberry. I did not think he would take another Conway kid just back-to-back. They didn't really need that position."
This complicated the recruiting process for Tolefree.
"I didn't know what to do," Tolefree said. "I didn't know what's a good coach, because all I've known is coach (Hutchcraft) and my AAU coaches. I stayed with the same AAU team from the start to the end. I didn't really know anything different, so I was just trying to do something where I could stay at home basically."
So that's what she did. Tolefree signed to play basketball at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, directly across the street from her mom's house.
"I think it was just comfortable to her," Hutchcraft said. "I was just really concerned about it, just being honest with you. I thought Lex needed to go away from home and mature a little bit."
Tolefree signed in November of her senior year, but she started to draw more interest from more schools.
"She's playing in front of these big-time Division I coaches and people are coming up asking, 'Where is that kid going?'" Hutchcraft said. "I think that it was a little eye-opening for Lex. She even made the comment, 'Is it too late?' I said, 'Yeah, it's too late, sis. You've already signed that paper.'"
Tolefree went to UCA, but she never suited up for the Sugar Bears.
"It wasn't a good fit for me," Tolefree said. "A couple of coaches had gotten new jobs and left, so it really wasn't the fit for me and it wasn't how I thought it was going to be. I kind of just quit, not knowing what I was going to do."
After deciding to leave UCA, Tolefree contemplated quitting basketball completely.
"Honestly there for a little bit Lex was like, 'I'm just done,'" Hutchcraft said. "I was like, 'No way. You're going to be playing basketball.'"
Eventually Tolefree did suit back up, but it was for Jones College in Ellisville, Miss., about 30 minutes outside of Hattiesburg, and about eight and a half hours away from her dream school in Fayetteville.
"She just matured into a young woman (while at Jones) and I think that even helped her on the floor a little bit," Hutchcraft said. "Just more disciplined. Hey, they gave me a second chance. This is my second chance. I've got to make these two years worthwhile so I can go somewhere else."
Tolefree made her two years count. She was a National Junior College Athletic Association All-American, averaged 21.3 points per game as a sophomore and led her team to the Region 23 title while scoring 50 points in the championship game.
All of a sudden Tolefree was a hot commodity. She received offers from Missouri, Baylor, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and, in her words, "Pretty much everybody in the SEC except for South Carolina." Among those offers was one from her home state school - Arkansas.
"Wow. It's always been a dream, but by that time I had a couple SEC offers, so I was just like, 'Hmm, is this a good fit?'" Tolefree said.
When it was finally time to decide where she would continue her college career Tolefree set herself up.
"I lost a ping pong match," Tolefree said.
Tolefree challenged Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors to a ping pong game with high stakes: If he won, she would commit to the Razorbacks.
Even before the first serve, Tolefree had made up her mind. "I always knew I wanted to come to Arkansas," she said. But she didn't let Neighbors know that. "He thought I was good at ping pong or something until he saw me the first swing."
Needless to say Neighbors won the match and Tolefree achieved her dream of playing for the Razorbacks, but the trials wouldn't stop for Tolefree. She came to find out that life in the Southeastern Conference is difficult to adjust to on the court, and in the classroom.
"It was probably the hardest transition ever," Tolefree said. "At JUCO there was like only 30 students in a class. I could name every last one of them. But then I came here and there was like 300 students, and I can barely see you let alone hear you. Then basketball was so much harder. It was so much faster. It was just a hard transition."
Tolefree struggled in her first year with the Razorbacks. She averaged 10.2 points and one assist per game and shot 29 percent from 3-point range. She said it wasn't until tournament time that she felt like she adjusted to the speed of the game.
But after a year in the SEC, Tolefree knew how to prepare herself to have a breakout senior season.
"Just being in the gym and just working on my game at game speed," Tolefree said. "And now that I know the pace of the game that's going to be played at it's a lot easier."
Her effort in the offseason paid off. Tolefree averaged 16.3 points and two assists per game, and she shot 42 percent from beyond the arc. The reason?
"Coach Todd (Schaefer) telling me my shooting percentage from last year," Tolefree said in an interview before the season. "I'm too good of a shooter to shoot the percentage that I did last year, and make the mistakes that I did last year. I just feel like I'll be a better help to my teammates and to my team if I was more consistent, so I'm in the gym every single day."
Tolefree's improvement in the gym translated to game success.
"I just feel like there wasn't very many games that I thought Lex played bad," Hutchcraft said. "I mean, she really, really played at a high level night in and night out."
Tolefree's season earned her a spot on the All-SEC first team, the first Razorback to do so since Jessica Jackson in 2016.
"I've never really thought about (individual awards) at all," Tolefree said. "I don't really think about it because I do play with younger people like Chelsea (Dungee) that have the spotlight on them at all times. I don't really think about anything like that. I just want to win."
Tolefree helped the Razorbacks do just that. The Razorbacks finished the 2019-20 season 24-8 overall. The 24 wins are tied with the 2011-12 team for the most since the program joined the SEC in 1992. The 10 conference wins also tied the 2011-12 team for the most conference wins since the Razorbacks joined the conference.
To top it off, the team finished the season No. 24 in the final Associated Press poll of the season, the first top-25 finish to a season since 2002-03.
Tolefree plans to try to play professional basketball somewhere. It is a goal of hers to provide for her family and give them the resources to travel the world. Whether she opts to play overseas or in the WNBA, she is hoping the timing on that dream is as true as her jumpshot.