{"id":72168,"date":"2026-08-18T14:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/72168\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T14:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:56:14","slug":"mineral-county-standout-jaeden-west-taking-game-to-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/72168\/","title":{"rendered":"Mineral County Standout Jaeden West Taking Game to Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">RENO, Nev. (KOLO) &#8211;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Jaeden West was an all-league basketball player at Mineral County High School. Now, the Hawthorne standout is heading overseas for the next step in his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">West has committed to play at CIS University in Madrid, a program in Spain that combines college coursework with competitive club-level basketball in a pipeline tied to professional leagues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s not something that occurs a lot in Hawthorne,\u201d West said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting, most definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The move is a big one for West, who comes from a small rural town in Nevada.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Hawthorne's Jaeden West to play basketball in Spain.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/YCIMZH2X6RERFKSVH6QIZIGWAM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Hawthorne&#8217;s Jaeden West to play basketball in Spain.(kolo)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s a big jump from my hometown being Hawthorne and only having close to 2,000 or 3,000 residents, to now the second-largest city in Spain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to West, the program is designed to help players reach their full potential while giving freshmen immediate playing opportunities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTheir main focus is to get you as best as you can get, like reach you to your max potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">West said many players spend a year in the program before moving on to the professional level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cA lot of kids go there for one year and then they go pro,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a good program and they have a lot of kids that make it to that next level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The overseas experience could also help West eventually transfer to a Division I program in the United States, giving him experience in a professional-style basketball environment and a longer season than many college players get.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s a 10-month program through \u2014 it\u2019s all pure basketball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">West says the journey is about more than basketball. It\u2019s also a major cultural change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI\u2019ve never been outside of the United States once,\u201d he said. \u201cThe farthest I\u2019ve gone is California.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Hawthorne's Jaeden West to play basketball in Spain.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FOS2SVXBYZF2NFOPQO3W7CIBIA.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Hawthorne&#8217;s Jaeden West to play basketball in Spain.(kolo)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He added that Hawthorne has helped make the opportunity possible, with community members organizing fundraisers and donating money to support the trip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">West says that support is proof that small towns can produce high-level talent \u2014 even if athletes in rural areas don\u2019t always get the same exposure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of kids that are from very small towns and they\u2019re very good,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just can\u2019t showcase their skills to all the big coaches and the certain people who need to see it because we\u2019re in such a small place and there\u2019s not a lot of connections around us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">His advice to other athletes is simple: put yourself out there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">West says using apps like FieldLevel can help players get noticed \u2014 the same way he did.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KOLO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RENO, Nev. (KOLO) &#8211; Jaeden West was an all-league basketball player at Mineral County High School. Now, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106,27970,27968,27971,82,27969,17,24541],"class_list":["post-72168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-basketball","tag-cis","tag-hawthorne","tag-jaeden","tag-madrid","tag-mineral-county","tag-spain","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}