PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Castro Does the Wave; U.S. Gets Splashed : Upsets: Cuba beats the American women’s basketball team and wins its first diving gold.

On a day when Fidel Castro did the Wave, and Cuban fans made them, the United States had its nose tweaked Saturday in sports that it usually dominates in the Pan American Games, basketball and diving.

Playing Cuba, a team it routed by 20 points only two nights before, the U.S. women’s basketball team should have sensed it was in trouble when the start of the semifinal game was delayed so that the host country’s No. 1 fan, Castro, could find his seat below the mural of revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara at the Sports City Coliseum.

But even if his presence did not distract the U.S. team, one of whose assistant coaches sneaked out of a pregame huddle to snap his picture, it certainly seemed to inspire the Cuban players and a standing-room-only crowd in the 12,000-seat arena.

Shots of all kinds--no-look, off-balance, desperation, you name it--found nothing but net for the Cubans, almost as if Castro willed them in, and the fans’ exuberance bordered on delirium each time he joined them in the Wave.

“If they scored two, the crowd made it seem like six,” said U.S. Coach Vivian Stringer of Iowa.

The Cubans (3-2) won, 86-81, advancing to today’s championship game against Brazil (5-0) and relegating the United States (3-2) to a game for the bronze medal against Canada (1-4).

The United States, which saw its 42-game winning streak in major international competition broken last Sunday in a three-point loss to Brazil, had not lost two games in the same tournament since the 1978 World Championships and was seeking its third consecutive Pan American Games gold medal.

But for historical significance, a more unlikely upset occurred in men’s platform diving, in which 16-year-old Rioger Ramirez was awarded 560.79 points to give Cuba its first Pan American Games gold medal in the sport.

It also was the first time that the United States has not won a gold or silver medal in a men’s diving event at the Pan American Games as Pat Jeffrey of Madison, N.J., finished third with 539.73 points and Matt Scoggin of Austin, Tex., was fifth with 506.34. Mexico’s Jesus Mena, who scored 544.08, won the silver medal.

Although no one seemed to begrudge Ramirez his gold medal, other divers and coaches, accustomed to a more genteel reception, were irate because a standing-room-only crowd of 2,500 at the Swimming Pool Complex whistled and jeered non-Cuban competitors in an obvious effort to distract them as they concentrated on upcoming dives.

They were wildly successful on the seventh of 10 dives by Jeffrey, a back 3 1/2 tuck. He was not necessarily disappointed with his score of 62.37, but he said he could do better with another chance and asked for a rare repeat. After the referee awarded it to him, he responded with a dive that earned 74.25 points.

“I have been diving for 15 years, and I have never done that,” Jeffrey said of his request for another attempt. “But, after that, I didn’t feel like diving any more.

“It was like we weren’t at a diving meet. It was more like a boxing match. I just felt it was rude and needed to be stopped.”

Apparently, the public address announcer, a Cuban diving official, felt the same way because he threatened to suspend the competition at one point, although it was unclear whether he had the authority.

“I have been a referee and a judge for many years, and this is the first time I’ve ever had to ask the crowd for quiet,” he told the fans in Spanish. “If you’re not, I’ll stop the competition.”

That calmed the crowd somewhat, but one of the U.S. coaches, Ron O’Brien of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., was still fuming later.

“I’m mad as hell,” he said.

Since the competition began last weekend, divers and gymnasts have complained about the pro-Cuban, anti-everyone-else crowd behavior, although it reached a new low Saturday.

But, in general, there has been nothing but praise during these Games for Cuban fans, who seem to be knowledgeable in many sports, appreciative of good performances by opponents and everywhere one looks because they are not required to pay for tickets. That is not a policy only for the Pan American Games but for all sporting events in Cuba.

They, however, were less than hospitable after Saturday’s basketball game, when they jeered and sneered at the defeated U.S. players and coaches as they left the court.

Whether they noticed is questionable.

“I’m more stunned than anything else,” Stringer said.

When the United States took an 11-3 lead, it appeared that it had picked up where it left off in Thursday’s 91-71 victory over the Cubans, who finished third in last year’s World Championships.

But after missing 13 consecutive shots from the field during a 12-0 Cuba run, the United States never again led by more than three. It missed 25 of its last 31 shots in the first half, then missed its first two of the second half.

Meantime, the athletic but not particularly disciplined Cubans made five shots in a row during one stretch in the second half and five of six in another as 17 of their last 27 shots found their target. Many of them would not have have been taken by any self-respecting playground player.

“How many of their turn-around, throw-ups went in?” asked a perplexed U.S. guard, Teresa Edwards.

After scoring only three first-half points, Edwards, a veteran of the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold-medal teams from Georgia, kept the United States alive in the second half with 19 points, nine of them on three pointers. But the Cubans had too many things going right for them, including the crowd.

“My biggest concern was that we had to play a team that was clearly capable of playing better than it did when we beat them Thursday,” Stringer said. “Combine that with the crowd and Castro, well, they played with a lot of pride.”

After the game, the Cubans embraced for at least a minute, then remembered to salute their President, who clasped his hands together in triumph and then applauded another victory for the revolution.