By Sam Draut & Olivia Krauth–

Updated 1:19 A.M. Feb. 24.

The roller coaster Cardinal career of Chris Jones is over.  The University of Louisville announced Sunday afternoon that Jones has been dismissed from the basketball team.

According to police reports, Jones threatened to “smack TF (the f***) out of” a woman he had been romantically tied to. The woman told police she had “mess(ed) up” Jones’ bedroom, leading to the text. The report says they had been in an on- and off- relationship for about a year.

Just a day before the dismissal, Jones returned to action after serving a one game suspension.  After scoring 17 points in a 55-53 victory over Miami, Rick Pitino said Jones had done everything necessary to continue playing this season.

Jones is Louisville’s third leading scorer averaging 13.7 points and is the team leader with 3.6 assists per game.

With the dismissal of Jones, freshman Quentin Snider will assume the starting point guard duties.

Snider performed well in his first career start in the 69-59 loss to Syracuse last week. Snider played 38 minutes and tallied 13 points, four assists and three rebounds.

Though Snider can provide an answer to the absence of Jones on the offensive end of the floor, Jones’ greatest impact was on defense.

Jones leads the Cardinals with 53 steals and provided relentless defensive pressure, essential to Pitino’s intense defensive scheme.

This season Louisville has relied on four players playing thirty minutes or more per game, Jones was one of them.

As much as Pitino will look to his already thin bench to fill the void left by Jones, Terry Rozier, Montrezl Harrell and Wayne Blackshear will have added responsibility to their already large roles.

For Jones, it is a disappointing ending to a brief but bright career at Louisville.  His poor body language and noticeable attitude stemmed problems from the beginning.

“I had a couple players a while ago that were a problem, and I didn’t like coaching them. The reason I didn’t like coaching them was not the problems that they brought me, but because they didn’t work hard. I can deal with a lot of problems. We’ll try to correct them and try to get them to own up and be a Louisville man. What I don’t like, is when somebody doesn’t work hard at their game,” Pitino said.  “Chris works hard at his game. All the time. That’s why I appreciate him. Is it fun to coach him? Not like Russ Smith – there’s not a lot of laughter coaching him. You appreciate how hard he works, so you give him some latitude when things don’t go well and he comes out of the game.”

But in the end, Pitino and the basketball program couldn’t afford to give him anymore leeway.