Mike Gillespie had a premonition about Ben Orloff.

The USC and UC Irvine coaching legend guided Orloff for two years as an Anteater, watching Orloff become the baseball program’s all-time hits leader with his peak bat-to-ball abilities. But it wasn’t Orloff’s eye-popping swing or swift speed on the basepaths that captivated Gillespie the most. It was the future he imagined for his star infielder, the then-Big West Conference player of the year.

“I don’t know how else to say it: His instincts, his clue, his feel for the game, his baseball IQ, is like nothing else,” Gillespie said as Orloff’s collegiate career wrapped up in 2009. “He should be a major league manager. He might be wasted as a major league manager, because they can do so little, in terms of all these little things.”

The American Baseball Coaches Assn. Hall of Famer, who died in 2020, continued: “He probably should be a college coach, a college head coach.”

It’s mid-May and Orloff sits in the office Gillespie once occupied. Orloff is bald with a bright smile. He’s just 38, and yet this is his 12th season on the UC Irvine coaching staff — and his seventh as the Anteaters’ head coach.

Orloff settles down at a table, crosses his legs and is ready to reminisce, talk shop — and praise the mish-mosh ballclub that’s set the Big West aflame for the second consecutive season in which it won its second regular-season conference championship under the coach.

“Not many people get their first job ever in college with no coaching experience [and become a] paid assistant coach at a place like UC Irvine,” Orloff said. “I’m aware that I was given opportunities that a lot of guys work a long time to get. I’m trying not to ruin it.”

UC Irvine baseball coach Ben Orloff walks on the field during a game against USC on Feb. 18.

(Matt Brown / UC Irvine Athletics)

Gillespie eventually gave Orloff the call back in 2013. The former All-American, who had been playing in the minors since 2009, was hitting just below .300 and had a .379 on-base percentage with double-A Corpus Christi when he decided it was time to return to UC Irvine.

Orloff said he always knew he was going to be a college coach. Whether it was after playing Major League Baseball for 15 years or directly after earning his bachelor’s degree, it was a goal he strived to achieve. But there was only one way he would “quit,” as he put it, and hang up his cleats for a new career: coaching at his alma mater for Gillespie.

Hired in 2013, the then-assistant was fully aware that he knew nothing about the ins and outs of coaching. Sure, he could practice the fundamentals — the basics of fielding and throwing strikes that Orloff still preaches — but much of the job was foreign. All he wanted to do, Orloff said, was to live up to his coach’s expectations.

“I was just extremely motivated to not let coach Gillespie down,” Orloff said. “Now being in this seat, to hire a guy for professional baseball that’s never coached at any level before, you don’t do that.”

He had to learn to recruit — he nabbed outfielder Jacob McCombs (.363 batting average/.448 on-base percentage/.627 slugging percentage) out of the transfer portal from San Diego State, signed junior college infielder Colin Yeaman (hitting .352 with 13 home runs) from College of the Canyons, and has developed Southern California talent such as sophomore starting pitcher Trevor Hansen (8-2 with a 3.14 earned-run average) from Royal High. Orloff said he is willing to sign any player from any level, knowing UC Irvine’s reach is different from blue blood programs, such as UCLA or Vanderbilt.

UC Irvine baseball coach Ben Orloff greets outfielder Jacob McCombs during a game.

(Robert Huskey / UC Irvine Athletics)

Orloff remarked that most articles written about the program highlight him. But he is also first to praise his coaching staff, such as pitching coach Daniel Bibona in his 13th year with the Anteaters or hitting coach J.T. Bloodworth, who helped the Anteaters notch their fourth-best batting average in program history a year ago.

“We played together for three years,” he said of Bibona. “Coach Gillespie hired him directly at a pro ball to be the pitching coach. … He does a really good job with these guys.”

“I think we broke every school offensive record last year,” Orloff remarked about Bloodworth’s impact. “This year, the numbers are like the same with a completely brand new group.”

Orloff and his staff brought in 20 new players before the season, restocking a roster that produced a 45-14 record and an NCAA regional appearance in 2024. And the Anteaters haven’t missed a beat. Irvine is ranked 20th in the nation, according to D1Baseball, and is pegged as the top West Coast program in the country — above UCLA — by the National College Baseball Writers Assn., with a No. 11 ranking.

“Winning matters to these guys,” Orloff said of his 39-13 squad. “I think our team has placed what’s best for the team above what’s best for them and I think that’s uncommon, probably in 2025, and so I think it’s why we’ve won.”

Heading into the inaugural Big West Conference tournament, Orloff said UC Irvine can compete with any team in the nation. He points to early-season battles against Nebraska, New Mexico and Vanderbilt — coming up just short of a three-game sweep at the MLB Desert Invitational in February.

When it comes to showing resolve against opponents, Orloff embraces football coach Bill Belichick’s inverse theory of winning — often credited to businessman Charlie Munger’s inversion technique. As Orloff puts it, the technique focuses on how “before you can win, you can’t do the things that make you lose.”

UC Irvine baseball coach Ben Orloff speaks to his players before a game against San Diego on April 1.

(Matt Brown / UC Irvine Athletics)

“You can look and just see how competitive they’ve been and how complete they’ve been,” said UCLA baseball coach John Savage, a disciple of coach Gillespie as a USC assistant and former Irvine head coach from 2002 to 2004.

“He’s clearly, I think, the best up-and-coming young coach in America. I truly believe that.”

With Irvine on the hunt for its first trip to Omaha since 2014 — and Orloff leading the way — the Anteaters might have the right recipe brewing at Cicerone Field.

Gillespie, long before Orloff took the reins, certainly thought so.

“I’m not kidding, he’s a better coach than I am,” Gillespie said in 2009.