I've got ~1,500 games played, never played Ranked, and have hardly played for the last 6 years or so. Recently, I got back into Dota with four friends who have either never played or have <100 games played. Almost every game we're playing in unranked we get absolutely stomped, against players with thousands of games, or at least carried by 2-3 players with that many. If I don't play with them, they're not as enthusiastic to play, but if I do play, the matchmaking seems to be very overconfident in our ability. It's not fun for them to be losing every game and they're not really learning anything or having much fun.

Is there a solution, or do I just have to not play with them until they've played ~200 games and we can go into Ranked where I assume the games will be more balanced? I created a smurf account but the three games we played were basically exactly the same.