Jerome Tang addresses postgame emotions between Cam Carter, Coleman Hawkins

A potentially ugly scene broke out at the end of LSU’s win over Kansas State on Thursday night, as Tigers guard Cam Carter and Wildcats forward Coleman Hawkins got into a heated postgame dust up.

The situation ultimately didn’t amount to much more than heated words as the Tigers got a big-time road win. And Wildcats head coach Jerome Tang said after the game he wasn’t entirely sure what set off the interaction, which began with a hard foul by LSU as the Tigers ran out the clock on a win over Tang’s crew.

“I didn’t see anything,” Tang said. “We were not fouling. We was going to let them dribble the clock out, he was going to take a shot clock violation and so I don’t know what happened.”

The entire incident was kicked off with a big collision between Hawkins and Carter.

Carter was ultimately called for the foul but he didn’t forget to circle back to Hawkins after the game. Following the teams’ postgame handshakes, Carter approached Hawkins and began to talk to him. Evidently, Hawkins wasn’t a fan of what Carter had to say as he began to approach the LSU standout.

#Emaw Coleman Hawkins #GeauxTigers #SEC 11 pt win on the road pic.twitter.com/twrFBjU5Dl

— Merl Washburn (@MerlG_Official) November 15, 2024

An LSU assistant coach picked up Carter and carried him to the tunnel while Hawkins followed behind at a distance, continuing the verbal exchange. After allowing the situation to diffuse, Carter returned to court under LSU head coach Matt McMahon‘s supervision and explained to the game’s broadcasting crew what caused the collision between him and Hawkins.

WATCH:

K-State's Coleman Hawkins and LSU's Cam Carter had to be restrained after the Tigers knocked off the Wildcats

The two were jawing at each other at the end of the game and it carried over after handshakes pic.twitter.com/e0AmK40r7W

— Landon Reinhardt (@landonian87) November 15, 2024

“I didn’t intentionally foul him but I didn’t want him to steal the ball from my teammate,” Carter said. “So I was kind of protecting him, that kind of thing.”

No matter who took the brunt of the late-game hit, Carter had the last laugh. In the win, he tallied a game-high 20 points while shooting 6-11 from the field and 3-6 from beyond the arc. He also recorded four rebounds and two assists.

In comparison, Hawkins finished the game with just eight points on 3-10 shooting. It’s no surprise that Carter was comfortable on Kansas State’s floor. He spent two seasons with the program before transferring to LSU this past offseason.

On3’s Grant Grubbs contributed to this report.