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Senior center Arinze Onuaku fell to the floor with a right knee injury with five minutes, seven seconds remaining in the game and left the arena on crutches after No. 8-seeded Georgetown upset top seed Syracuse, 91-84, in the Big East tournament quarterfinals at Madison Square Garden.

"We're hoping it's just a strain, but tomorrow we'll get an MRI -- It's already scheduled," Dr. Irving Raphael, the Syracuse team physician, said in a hallway after the game. "I expect him to play unless there's a surprise. But we'll get the MRI, treat what we get and then you'll all know as soon as I know."

Said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim: "He's had a great year, and he's a tremendous player. We hope that he'll be fine. We don't know."

With or without Onuaku, who was averaging 10.7 points and 5.2 rebounds, the No. 3-ranked Orange (28-4) still retain hopes of garnering a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament even though they've dropped two straight.

The first-round loss may end up helping the Orange in the NCAA Tournament.

Syracuse assistant coach Gerry McNamara led the Orange to Big East tournament titles in 2005 and '06. In both years Syracuse was bounced in the first round of the NCAAs.

In 2003, Syracuse lost its second Big East tournament game and won the national championship behind stud freshman Carmelo Anthony.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you we're going to go win a national championship," McNamara said. "I'm saying that I think we have one of the teams that has a pretty good chance to make a run and take a shot at it."

Asked if Syracuse was still a "dangerous" team for the NCAA Tournament, Hoyas coach John Thompson III scoffed.

"A dangerous team? That's an understatement," he said. "That team is still one of the best, if not the best, team in the country in spite of today's outcome."

Georgetown, which has seven, and Syracuse (five) have combined to win 12 of the 30 Big East tournament titles and three of the last five.

Syracuse had beaten Georgetown twice this season and led by as many as nine points, 57-48, with 13:43 remaining in the game.

But the Hoyas used a 15-2 game-changing run to seize a 64-59 lead and never looked back.

Even after Onuaku went down, Syracuse cut it to 85-81 on a 3-pointer from Kris Joseph, but Greg Monroe and Austin Freeman made 6 of 8 foul shots in the final 46.9 seconds.

Monroe struggled to score against Syracuse's vaunted 2-3 zone early but finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists.

"Greg is an unselfish player," Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. "He had a terrific game today without getting a lot of shots. He ended up with 15, 10 and 7. That's pretty damn good."

Said Boeheim: "He's the best inside passer in college basketball easily. And he can score in there."

Chris Wright kept Georgetown in the game in the second half by penetrating the zone and scoring in a variety of ways. He finished with a game-high 27 points and six assists.

Austin Freeman, who is playing despite having a team doctor on the bench managing his Diabetes, had 18 points, including the final four from the foul line. Jason Clark added 17 points.

Wesley Johnson, the Big East player of the year, led the Orange with 24 points, Scoop Jardine had 19 and Kris Joseph 14.

Georgetown looks forward to a date in the semifinals and can still improve its NCAA tournament seeding.

Syracuse will head home and wait to see if it's still a No. 1 seed.

"I still feel like we should be somewhere up there, 1, 2, 3 in those slots there, but then again it doesn't really matter to us because when we started the season we were nowhere to be found in the national rankings. [In the] Big East, we were at the bottom," Joseph said.

"We like being the underdogs, really, it does even bother us."