To Bob Coolen, "lock" is a four-letter word.

He is the coach of the University of Hawai'i softball team and the merest suggestion now that the Rainbow Wahine are, well, already a "lock" for the NCAA tournament causes the eyes to widen and the heart rate to jump considerably.

Better to accuse him of running up the score on somebody than having anything clinched yet in this most promising of seasons.

Never mind that the Rainbow Wahine are 42-9 and experiencing their best Western Athletic Conference season in 11 years of membership at 13-2. Or that they are No. 14 in the national rankings and fresh off taking a series from four-time defending conference champion Fresno State. All of them preseason goals already met by the Rainbow Wahine.

They should be able to head into this concluding three-game series of the regular season at 17-27 Utah State tomorrow and Saturday secure in the knowledge that they have done enough to crack the 64-team NCAA field. They should have reached the point where anything that might happen in the last four or five games of the season shouldn't smudge what has been accomplished in the remarkable first 51.

If there was ever a Rainbow Wahine team that should have that much nailed down at this point, this is it. You sense that Coolen feels it, too.

Yet he also grasps that things, the unpredictable and often unfathomable, can and do happen when the NCAA selection committee sits down to its deliberations. Experience has taught him that. The hard way.

"I don't ever say the word 'lock' over here in Hawai'i," Coolen says. "I mean, I've seen some scenarios that have affected other teams and have affected us in the past. We've been gathered in together waiting for the announcement and then been left there sitting empty-handed while teams we played — and beat — went to the tournament. They've taken last-place teams from some conferences instead of the second-place team in ours."

So it isn't difficult to guess the topic of his speech to the Rainbow Wahine as they head to Logan, Utah, to put what should be the finishing touches on what would be UH's second WAC regular-season title.

Especially after UH got caught easing up last week against Fresno State. After blowing out the Bulldogs 18-2 in a hail of home runs, the Rainbow Wahine got complacent and suffered only their second loss in the last 21 games, 6-2. "I took them aside and said, 'Look, no team is gonna roll over for you,' " Coolen said. "And, nobody is."

With a No. 1 seed in the May 10 to 12 WAC tournament at stake and an opportunity to further buff up the resume for postseason in this most promising of seasons, "lock" — unless it has "Yale" "Master" or "Schlage" imprinted on it — is probably a term best avoided around the Rainbow Wahine this week.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.