MORGANTOWN — It doesn’t happen like this in the fairytales.

First the giant dies, then someone says:

“And they lived happily ever after.”

Only this time the giant died a day early.

Our story begins this way:

Once upon a time, on an island bordered on the east by the East River and on the west by the Hudson River, there was a city watched over by a lovely lady with a torch in one hand and book held in her other.

They called it New York City.

Every year they would hold this wonderful jousting tournament in the place they called New York and people would come from near and far to view the competition. Almost always there was a giant on hand, but as often as not this giant would be cut down to size, perhaps by a knight in orange named Gerry McNamara, perhaps by funny looking little man in a multi-colored sweater. It was no different this year, for there was a giant again entered into the competition. He was part of the jousting team called the Hoyas, which must be something out of the middle ages that long ago has been forgotten.

His name was Roy Hibbert and, at 7-feet, 2-inches, it is fair to categorize him as giant. Chosen to slay this giant was a band of mountain men, led by a bearded man covered in leather with a critter hat atop his head and a long rifle in his arm. But he was not the man who was designated to do the jousting.

That was assigned to the man they called Joe the Giant Killer.

He had swept through the city of New York like a plague of locusts through the flatlands of the place they call Oklahoma, destroying anyone who came in his way. He had registered 149 points in his previous five efforts, showing acrobatic moves that even the king’s own team of acrobats could not match.

It seemed that he would have no trouble on this night, for the giant called Hibbert had seemingly been mortally wounded just one day earlier. While his team survived against some Wildcats from the main line town of Villanova in the kingdom of Pennsylvania, Hibbert had been held without so much as a point.

A man of his height had reached depths few men his size had ever known.

Now he would face Joe the Giant Killer, the man whom the tabloids of New York had dubbed Broadway Joe after a conquering hero of many decades ago.

But, as it was with Mark Twain, reports of the giant Hibbert’s death were highly premature and greatly exaggerated, for he was only playing possum.

Now it’s true that our hero, Joe the Giant Killer, had traveled long and far awaiting this confrontation. He had been to the land at the bottom of the earth, a place called China, where this is Great Wall that once kept enemies out but that now serves no greater purpose than the boardwalk in Atlantic City, one colossal tourist attraction.

With his Hoyas continually surrounding Joe could never work himself into good position.

He was the object of the coach, John Thompson III, and his defense.

“I just think that between Patrick (Ewing) and DaJuan (Summers), and for stretches also Jeremiah (Rivers), you know, they play him differently. So it's like a different look, a different feel. I just thought they worked their behinds off. It was one of those games where we wanted, like I say, we didn't want to double, we didn't want to run guys at him. It was just, ‘Hey, guard him!' And we're fortunate that he missed some shots that he had been making the last two weeks. But I think our guys' effort, particularly DaJuan and Patrick, made things a little more difficult for him.”

Oh, there was one moment that is sure to go onto the highlight reel entitled “Great Moments in Jousting”, a moment when Joe put a shake and bake move on DaJuan Summers that left him lying on the floor of the palace that is Madison Square Garden as Joe hit a jump shot.

But in the end the 34 points he had accumulated against Connecticut the previous night had no more value on this day than just to give him satisfaction knowing that he had scored as many points in that one effort as did his former king John Beilein’s entire team in being ousted from the Big 10 tournament.

While Joe the Giant Killer, was struggling, the giant himself was unstoppable. Playing atop the beanstalk, the giants Hibbert collected 25 points had had 13 rebounds, 10 of them on the offensive side of the court.

“I knew he was gong to come out hungry,” said his jousting mate, Jessie Sapp. “So we wanted to feed him. We wanted to keep feeding him and feeding him.”

Giants, you see, have voracious appetites.

Why he even had the audacity to step back beyond the demarcation arc between the Land of Two Points and the Land of Three Points and hit a long-distance 3, something even Joe the Giant Killer could not do throughout this evening.

But it was after his last basket that the giant let the world know how he felt. He flexed his muscles and shouted:

“I’m a monster now. Be afraid!”

The warning came far too late to help Joe the Giant Killer.

Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com