PARIS — This wasn’t the way the Olympics were supposed to end, not for the much-anticipated Canada’s men’s basketball team that turned out to be a huge disappointment at the Paris Summer Games.

They didn’t just lose 82-73 to France in a quarterfinal match of the Olympic tournament on Tuesday. They all but embarrassed themselves.

This team that was supposed to be Canada’s darling here — the kind of Olympic team the country yearns to fall in love with at each Games — instead went out without much of a whimper, leaving a country of huge hopes heartbroken and a group of professional basketball players unsure about what exactly punched them in the gut here.