ncloth is not going to work for the tube. I would strongly suggest you make the surface live and draw curves on the surface and then extrude a nurbs circle along the curves.

Also I am surprised to hear that the modo background constraint worked for the tube because as you push the tube to the surface the section that hits the sphere first will get flattened as you push the tube far enough for the outer ends of the tube to hit the surface of the sphere.