Butler’s Tyler Wideman viciously swats away fastbreak lay-up (Video)

Butler forward Tyler Wideman announced his presence in March Madness with a monster block against Winthrop

Even since the departure of Brad Stevens, the Butler Bulldogs have been a team whose success has often been predicated on their defense. Entering 2017 March Madness as the No. 4 seed in the South Region, though, this version of Butler is one that has seen a strong uptick in their offensive prowess. Someone must have forgotten to tell forward Tyler Wideman, though, that this Bulldogs squad wasn’t known for their defense.

Facing off with Winthrop in the First Round, Butler jumped out to an early lead, but the Eagles were trying to get easy buckets to keep the deficit manageable. After a rebound, Winthrop senior guard Keon Johnson took off down the floor, trying to convert on a fastbreak.

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There was certainly some traffic for Johnson to go through, but he still looked like he might get a lay-up off to get his team a needed two points. Instead, Wideman came flying in from behind the play and completely denied the Winthrop attempt. Denied might actually be too nice of a term for what the junior forward did to the lay-up as he swatted it away with tremendous authority:

Good gravy, that should go down as two blocks—one of the shot, and one of Winthrop’s hopes at getting an upset early on.

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Soon after the vicious block, Wideman and the rest of Butler’s defense clamped down even further on their No. 13-seeded opponents. They held them scoreless for over four minutes of play and went up comfortably by double digits. Whenever you have a player making blocks like this off of fast breaks, it makes sense that things would be breaking your way.