Kentucky Basketball: Grad transfer Nate Sestina’s vaule to Wildcats for 2029-20

Although known for his blockbuster recruiting classes, Kentucky Basketball to the transfer market again. What can Nate Sestina bring to the table?

After bringing in Stanford’s Reid Travis last season, Kentucky Basketball will have another graduate transfer in Bucknell’s Nate Sestina.  Although the Travis transfer was atypical for Kentucky, which has typically built teams with 5-star recruits, Travis was still a 5-star player coming into college.

(Credit to KenPom and sports-reference for statistics and The_Dog for GIFS)

The Sestina addition is unique  for Kentucky not only because he’s a transfer, but because he was a 2-star recruit at a mid-major school. Although the Wildcats are still doing plenty well on the recruiting trail (2nd overall incoming class per 247sports), Sestina should bring valuable skill and experience to the table.

The 6-9, 245 pound forward steadily improved over his college career but really took a leap last season, increasing his points per game from 6.5 to 15.8. This leap was likely due to a combination of personal improvement on Sestina’s part along with increased opportunities.

Sestina’s first three seasons, a Bucknell great in 6-7 forward Zach Thomas carried much of the offensive load. With Thomas graduating, Sestina filled the “Thomas” role last season. Both players can score from inside-and-out, and Sestina’s stat line of 15.8 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 60.8 2pt% and 38.0 3pt% wasn’t entirely different from Thomas’s senior season stat line of 20.5 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 50.9 2pt% and 38.2 3pt%.

What makes Sestina unique is not only his ability to score both inside and outside the arc, but his ability to do so efficiently. He was 96th in the nation last season with an effective FG% of 59.6% and even shot 80.8% from the foul line.

Going back to the 1992-93 season, only 4 players (0.19 per season) met each of the following statistical criteria (per sports-reference).

• >=15.8 ppg
• >= 8.5 rpg
• >= 38.0 3-point %
• >=1 made 3-pointer per game
• >= 60.8 2p%

Sestina became one of the “fab four” last season, joining Belmont’s Dylan Windler, who did it twice in his career (2017-18, 2018-19), Utah’s Keith Van Horn (1994-95) and Purdue Fort-Wayne’s John Konchar (2018-19)

Sestina’s strength is on the offensive end, but he brings some positives defensively as well. In particular, he’s great at closing out possessions with defensive rebounds, posting the 26th best defensive rebounding rate in the nation last season (per KenPom). He also provides a bit of shot blocking (265th best block rate last season).

With 6-11 Nick Richards and 6-10 EJ Montgomery returning, and incoming freshmen 6-7 five-star Kahli Whitney, 6-7 four-star Johnny Juzang and 6-7 four-star Keion Brooks all providing competition at the forward positions, it’s not entirely clear what Sestina’s minutes load will be. Regardless, Sestina should be expected to play a role on what should be a really good Kentucky team.

Most sites have Kentucky in the top 2-3 of their early preseason polls, behind the likes of Michigan State and Kansas. If the Wildcats live up to the hype and make their first Final Four run since 2014-15, there’s a good chance Sestina will have been a valuable contributor.