Sestina Grateful as Senior Night Approaches

Nate Sestina had high expectations from the moment he decided to play a graduate-transfer season at Kentucky. He wouldn’t have made the decision otherwise.
 
To have the experience live up to those expectations, that’s really something.
 
“It’s everything that you wanted to happen for you,” Sestina said. “To play basketball at a high level, to play for a coach like Coach Cal, to have the teammates that I have and have the fans that we have and the support, it’s been everything to me, it’s been everything to my family.”
 
Sestina’s family – his parents, Donald and Rachelle, specifically – will be in attendance to celebrate that experience on Tuesday. Kentucky will hold Senior Night before the No. 6/6 Wildcats (24-5, 14-2 Southeastern Conference) host Tennessee (16-13, 8-8 SEC) at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Festivities for the Emporium, Pennsylvania, native will begin at approximately 8:43 p.m., with tipoff to follow at 9 p.m.
 
Sestina has already been through Senior Night once before graduating from Bucknell last season. To go through it in front of 20,000-plus is another thing entirely, especially since this really is his last go-round.
 
“It’s a little bit different because I know now that this is my last one,” Sestina said. “And I love college basketball and if I had another year, I would stay for sure. It’s just something I have come to love and appreciate. But, it’s starting to hit me a little bit, that this is my last time doing it. But I can’t think about it too much because I don’t want to let that affect how I play.”
 
Neither he nor his Kentucky team can afford for that to happen. Sestina is too important a cog for the Wildcats as they round into form as March arrives, having won eight straight games to lock down an SEC regular-season championship with still a week left in the regular season.
 
Just as Sestina came to Kentucky with expectations, so too did UK’s coaching staff have expectations for the 6-foot-9 forward. That started with his background as a successful college player with 99 games under his belt, experienced that enabled him to step into a leadership role from day one.
 
“Nate has given us tremendous leadership,” assistant coach Joel Justus said. “Being that guy that is older, that is more mature … most of the time.”
 
That caveat – “most of the time” – has turned out to be a great thing. Sestina is serious when the situation calls for it, but also willing to cut up with his younger teammates. That’s only served to strengthen the bonds they all share.
 
“I think he’s one that laughs,” Justus said. “I think he tells bad jokes and laughs at even worse jokes that are told by the other guys on the team, but this is a group that really came together over Christmas. … I think this group really came together over meals an it’s amazing, I think when you look at it from our perspective, what meals can do for teams, what meals can do for families, and that has never been more obvious (than) with this team and how they came together after what I think we all would say was a rough Las Vegas trip.”
 
Of course, UK has rallied since that trip to win 16 of its last 18 games, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Sestina over that time. Never quite finding a rhythm after breaking his wrist in late November, Sestina endured the coldest streak of his college career in January and February. That culminated in a two-week stretch that saw him go scoreless in three of four games after only having two such performances in his two preceding seasons combined.
 
Ironically, it was the player who was playing the best basketball of his life who helped Sestina when he was playing his worst.
 
“I knew there were going to be ups and downs throughout the season,” Sestina said. “I think the thing that surprised me the most was how receptive and how much my teammates helped me out when I was going through that little slump. Every day Immanuel (Quickley) was always talking to me about keeping my head up and keep fighting and keep working.”
 
For everything that Sestina expected coming to Kentucky, he never figured he would become part of a team so tightknit and so reliant on the energy it had come to expect from him.
 
“They’re chasing after something too, and I didn’t think that me going through that slump would affect anybody,” Sestina said. “But I couldn’t let that affect my energy and I did at times and our coaching staff got on me about it and my teammates got on me about it, about not being the same guy energy-wise.”
 
Once Sestina figured that out – that he couldn’t stop being the loudest player on the floor just because his shots weren’t falling – things came back together. The proof came in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as Sestina came off the bench to contribute 11 points and eight rebounds to finally reach 1,000 points for his career. More importantly, he was an essential part of a big victory. That was true again over the weekend, as Sestina scored 11 points as UK clinched the SEC title outright in a top-15 battle against Auburn.
 
A big part of the reason Sestina came to Kentucky was to play in games like that. He also came to Kentucky to best position himself for a professional basketball career, which he intends to pursue wherever that may take him next season.
 
First, however, he wants to enjoy what’s left of his time at Kentucky and, of course, play in as many more big games as he can.
 
“Now, moving into my final home game here is a little surreal, but definitely going to soak in the experiences, soak in the time with my family while they’re here and then go into Saturday’s game,” Sestina said. “I’m trying to do it, it’s hard because everything just happened, then it’s gone. But I’ve been reflecting a lot and a lot of great memories have been popping up.”