// a href = ./ //

JUPITER (AP) -- Allen Craig has been prevented from playing first by a sore shoulder. The injury doesn't appear to have affected his swing, though.

Craig and Matt Holliday each hit their first homers of spring training, leading the St. Louis Cardinals to a 10-2 victory over the Houston Astros on Monday.

Craig was starting as the designated hitter. He reached base in all three at-bats, adding a walk and an RBI single.

"I feel good," he said. "We're just taking it extremely slow. It's a really long spring. I want to get out here and play in the field, but at the same time the season starts April 1 and I want to be ready for that."

The homers were back-to-back as part of a five-run third inning that broke the game open.

Holliday's two-run drive landed on the balcony of the Miami Marlins clubhouse beyond the left-center field wall, driving in Kolton Wong. The Marlins and Cardinals share the Roger Dean Stadium complex.

"I hit it pretty good," Holiday said. "I'm just trying to put good swings out there."

Pete Kozma added a solo homer in the seventh for St. Louis.

Adam Wainwright, the Cardinals' likely opening-day starter, allowed four hits while striking out three in 2 2-3 scoreless innings.

"The ball came out nice - I moved the ball around a little bit," Wainwright said "It was a good place to start."

Wainwright's counterpart, Phillip Humber didn't fare as well.

After needing only eight pitches to retire the Cardinals in the first inning, Humber walked the first two batters of the inning before David Freese lined a pitch off the right-field wall, scoring Craig.

Humber issued another walk but managed to get out of the inning without allowing another run.

"I just didn't throw strikes," said Humber, who was selected off waivers from the White Sox during the offseason. "It's not the ideal second inning that you want to have, but it's my first time out there. I'm not going to get myself worked up over it."

Former Cardinals pitcher and outfielder Rick Ankiel received an ovation from the crowd before his first at-bat, then promptly ripped a double to the left-center wall. Ankiel was thrown out trying to stretch the play into a triple. He went 1 for 2.

NOTES: Manager Mike Matheny acknowledged the Cardinals have considered giving Yadier Molina some reps at first base. Craig and Matt Adams are both dealing with injuries and Molina could play some first base for Puerto Rico in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. ... Matheny said pitcher Jake Westbrook will get his first start of the spring on Thursday against Miami. Joe Kelly is slated to start Friday at Houston. ... Two Cardinals' former first-round draft choices (Tyler Greene and Brett Wallace) and one second-round selection (Rick Ankiel) appeared in the Astros' starting lineup on Monday. Another former Cardinal farmhand, C. J. Fick also pitched in relief. Jeff Luhnow was the St. Louis VP of Scouting and Player Development before becoming the Houston general manager. ...Houston pitcher Paul Clemens slipped on the wet field in the late innings while trying to cover first and remained on the ground for about a minute. Houston trainers came out to check on Clemens, who walked off the field without help.

© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.

Tom Brady will be a Patriot until he is 40 years old.

Brady agreed to a three-year contract extension with New England on Monday, a person familiar with the contract told The Associated Press. The extension is worth about $27 million and will free up nearly $15 million in salary cap room for the team, which has several younger players it needs to re-sign or negotiate new deals with.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the extension has not been announced.

Sports Illustrated first reported the extension.

The 35-year-old two-time league MVP was signed through 2014, and has said he wants to play at least five more years.

A three-time Super Bowl champion, Brady will make far less in those three seasons than the going rate for star quarterbacks. Brady currently has a four-year, $72 million deal with $48 million guaranteed.

Drew Brees and Peyton Manning are the NFL's highest-paid quarterbacks, at an average of $20 million and $18 million a year, respectively.

Brady has made it clear he wants to finish his career with the Patriots, whom he led to Super Bowl wins for the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons, and losses in the big game after the 2007 and 2011 seasons. By taking less money in the extension and redoing his current contract, he's hopeful New England can surround him with the parts to win more titles.

Among the Patriots' free agents are top receiver Wes Welker and his backup, Julian Edelman; right tackle Sebastian Vollmer; cornerback Aqib Talib; and running back Danny Woodhead.

Brady has been the most successful quarterback of his era, of course, as well as one of the NFL's best leaders. His skill at running the no-huddle offense is unsurpassed, and he's easily adapted to the different offensive schemes New England has concentrated on through his 13 pro seasons.

The Patriots have gone from run-oriented in Brady's early days to a deep passing team with Randy Moss to an offense dominated by throws to tight ends, running backs and slot receivers.

Brady holds the NFL record for touchdown passes in a season with 50 in 2007, when the Patriots went 18-0 before losing the Super Bowl to the Giants. He has thrown for at least 28 touchdowns seven times and led the league three times.

Last season, Brady had 34 TD passes and eight interceptions as the Patriots went 12-4, leading the league with 557 points, 76 more than runner-up Denver.

© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.

Now is when things really start to get interesting for the little school that always seems to play so big.

Look for Gonzaga on the map and it takes someone in the know to find the Catholic school in the corner of the Pacific Northwest. Look for the Zags on the basketball map at this time of the year and they're usually a lot easier to find.

John Stockton once played for the school, before he went on to a Hall of Fame career making sure the Mailman was always in position to deliver. Stockton's son, David, plays there now, though he's not quite the assist machine his father once was.

Gonzaga has gone to the last 14 NCAA tournaments, once advancing to within one win of the Final Four. They're usually the kind of team other coaches hate to face early because they always seem so fundamentally sound.

Now they're No. 2 in The Associated Press Top 25 poll this week, the school's highest ranking ever. And as selection time gets near and the No. 1 seeds are picked, the question becomes this:

Why not Gonzaga?

Why not, indeed. If there's ever a season a mid-major can become a No. 1 seed and get on the inside track to the Final Four, it's this one.

The Zags have been tournament darlings before, sure. But this year they're a legitimate top-five pick on anyone's ballot - and a No. 1 pick by one voter in the AP weekly poll.

Parity reigns across the nation and, until Indiana solidified things at the top, being No. 1 was a crown to be worn uneasily. But while the Bulldogs may play in a small conference, they played a big-school schedule to make sure they're ready in March.

They're done with the label of being the little school that can. Their coach points to the schedule and says they can't even be considered a mid-major anymore.

They've been playing - and beating - the big boys for so long they're simply a very good college basketball team. Period.

"Our body of work speaks for itself," guard Mike Hart said Monday. "Our two losses (Illinois and at Butler) were quality losses. We've had a great group of games and a schedule that has been tough."

That Gonzaga is a heartbeat away from the top spot in American basketball is largely due to a pair of Canadians who couldn't be more different.

Kevin Pangos is the guard who grew up idolizing Steve Nash and can't stand to not be in the gym. Kelly Olynyk is the late-blooming 7-footer with the flowing locks who looks like he would be comfortable joining Bill Walton at a Grateful Dead concert.

Pangos was a success from the minute he put on a uniform at Gonzaga, coming off the bench in his first game as a freshman last year and then starting every game since. Olynyk, who grew seven inches while in high school, struggled off the bench for two seasons before taking a year off last season to bulk up and work on his skill set and become one of the top big men in the country.

Together they've got the Bulldogs at 27-2 with two games left until the West Coast Conference tournament.

It would all be heady stuff, except Gonzaga has been here before. Maybe not quite this high in the rankings, but coach Mark Few's team has won four of every five games since he took over in 1999, and the Zags always seem to be in the mix late in the season.

If there's a knock against the Bulldogs - the official team nickname, though they're known everywhere as the Zags - it's the usual one for teams from smaller schools (Gonzaga's enrollment is about 7,500). They play in a conference with schools they almost always dominate, making it hard to get a fix on just how good they are once the conference schedule begins.

If they were a football team, they'd be Boise State. The formula is win a few tough ones early, then beat up on conference wannabes and move up in the rankings while teams in more competitive conferences struggle. This deep into the season, though, Gonzaga has no doubt it belongs among the elite teams in the country.

"The polls mean a lot more this time of year than they do in November, December, even January," Few said. "All of us are being judged on the true body of work. It's definitely rewarding. It establishes us as a national program, which I believe we have been for the last 10 years. This group has done a great job of competing at that level, winning games at the highest level."

To win a bunch of them in a row in the NCAA tournament requires the kind of talent that some Gonzaga teams of the past have lacked. The difference this year might be Olynyk, a rare big man with the ball-handling instincts of the guard he once was.

After redshirting as a junior last year, he's now a potential first-round NBA pick averaging 17.7 points and seven rebounds a game.

"He grew up and his game grew up," Few said.

The same might be said about the school nobody in basketball considers little anymore.

----

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or HTTP://TWITTER.COM/TIMDAHLBERG

© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.