Hello Guy

Yes, and you are right.

Without unwrapping the sphere, I can't see a way to tell Blender (for Cycles) that there is a spherical mapping needed.

Still, if you're using the Blender Internal renderer, everything still functions as before.

I still want to do some experiments (as time allows) and see what I find concerning this very topic (necessities for mapping textures for Cycles). I have a feeling that (so far) it will have to be through UV coordinates. ie. unwrapping

Hang in there!

James