Sullivan | Jones listens, learns and produces

If Chris Jones is not yet all ears, he is mostly ears. The precise percentage is in dispute, but the University of Louisville's alpha point guard has lately learned to listen.

"I think Coach P came out and said I always fight with him," Jones said Monday, referring to Rick Pitino. "He said I listen 70 percent of the time. I think it's 90 now. ... Hopefully by the tournament — I know by the tournament — I'll be listening 100 percent."

Strong-willed and accustomed to heeding his own instincts, Jones has started the new year resolved to be more coachable and collegial. He set a career high last week at Wake Forest with 10 assists and Saturday matched a personal best by sinking eight field goals at North Carolina.

He has opened Atlantic Coast Conference play on a decidedly different note than he closed 2014, after a spate of poor shooting, an infamous flop against Kentucky and a punitive benching against Long Beach State. Over the past three games, it has been easy to see that Jones has begun to hear the wisdom behind what Pitino's been preaching.

"I think the bench has a way of forcing you to listen," Pitino said.

Since he was pointedly removed from Louisville's starting lineup after an embarrassing acting effort against Kentucky, Jones has averaged 21 points and produced three of his top four scoring totals of the season. Within that small sample, the 5-foot-10 senior has improved his field-goal accuracy, his 3-point percentage, his free-throw shooting, his assist-turnover ratio and become the ACC leader in steals per minutes played.

He has lent Pitino his ears, and been repaid with a handsome profit. If Jones is not yet responding at his coach at a 100 percent rate, he is no longer the headstrong junior college transfer who took 41 shots and provided only two assists during one six-day span last season. He's learning to share the ball and also to rebound it. He's starting to hear what he had once tuned out.

"I've been an all-scoring guard," Jones said. "Now, I'm just looking for teammates first and then whatever comes after that comes. I've just been letting the game come to me and I've been just shining, I guess. That's what the coach calls it, just shining. . .

"In junior college, I knew what I could get away with. I pretty much could do whatever I wanted with or without the ball, on or off the court, too. That was the biggest change for me. It wasn't basketball. It wasn't the style of play. It was just that things on and off the court that I was used to (getting) away with in junior college that I couldn't get away with here."

Pitino prevailed on Jones to shed some surplus weight, and the result has been improved quickness. He views Jones as a talented player perched on a fence, liable to lose direction, in need of close supervision.

"Chris is the type of guy who always has his hands in the cookie jar," Pitino said Monday. "And if you allow his hands to go in the cookie jar, he'll take all the cookies. He'll do the wrong things is what I'm saying. So you have to make sure Chris does all the right things. He is a great guy and a lot of fun to coach because he'll bring it every single practice, but if you allow him to have bad habits, he'll have a lot of bad habits. If you don't allow it, he won't."

When told of Pitino's cookie jar comparison Monday, Jones confessed, "I don't know what that means." If he's not yet at the stage where he immediately comprehends all that he's being taught, Chris Jones is at least paying attention now.

"I used to force things," he admitted. "I used to think scoring first. (But) As a point guard, you can't think that way. As a player, period, you can't think that way.

"... Now I'm all in, whatever coach wants me to do."

He has been listening well enough to make himself heard. Of late, loudly.

Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, by email at tsullivan@courier-journal.com

TODAY'S GAME

VIRGINIA TECH AT NO. 6 LOUISVILLE

7 p.m., KFC Yum! Center

TV: Fox South Radio: WKRD-790